


Mysterioustale

by ArtyMyella



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, Coraline (2009), Gravity Falls, Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi (Cartoon), NiGHTS into Dreams, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Steven Universe (Cartoon), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Coraline Needs A Hug, Crack Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dipper Pines Needs A Hug, Female NiGHTS (NiGHTS), Gen, Good Guy Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Good Guy Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Mabel Pines Needs A Hug, Miles "Tails" Prower Needs a Hug, Minor Amy Rose/Sonic the Hedgehog, Nightmares, Sonic the Hedgehog Needs a Hug, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 41,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28861032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtyMyella/pseuds/ArtyMyella
Summary: A "modern-ish" take on an old Undertale AU of mine, that until now only had artwork and soundtrack.Coraline Jones, who is bored out of her mind in the apartment her family moved to, decides to satisfy her curiosity by wandering off to a mountain her neighbors pointed the existence of. "Mt. Falls," a mountain where supposedly magic beings were sealed deep inside its caves. The annoyingly sassy girl will have to learn how to keep her half-orange, half-magenta SOUL safe while two ghost twins use their knowledge to guide her.[Fandoms and tags will be updated as the story goes.]
Relationships: Amy Rose & Miles "Tails" Prower, Bendy & Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Coraline Jones & Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Miles "Tails" Prower & Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Miles "Tails" Prower & Sonic the Hedgehog, NiGHTS & Reala (NiGHTS )
Kudos: 10





	1. Intro

_Once upon a time, two species shared the world. Humans, and whimsical, magic beings. The two lived in harmony until slowly, tensions rose between the two species. Soon, a war brew between them. The magic beings did have much more magic power than the humans but were much frailer physically, and soon enough, humanity won the harsh, long war._

_When the magic beings miserably begged for mercy, humanity decided to gather seven of its best mages. They backed the magic beings, down, deep inside the caves of a mountain, and they chanted a spell that created a barrier around the mountain. No one could leave, but anyone could come in._

_This mountain, located in Ashland, Oregon, and called Mt. Falls, became a place shrouded in mystery. Legends and tales from the books that recorded it and the people that knew it always said; "Never go there. No one that falls in, can ever return." But it wasn't like it stopped some brave souls from going down there._

_The latest case is Coraline Jones._

_She used to live in Pontiac, Michigan, before moving to the Pink Palaces of Ashland. With no one to play with, barely anything to keep herself entertained, and her parents too busy with their gardening catalog to catch their attention, she decided to explore. Then, her strangely eccentric neighbors told her about the dreaded Mt. Falls. With her curiosity and boredom at its peak, she decided to climb there with her raincoat, boots, and a stick, to see if the tale was real._

_Perhaps she could never expect a wacky adventure down there._

**_MYSTERIOUSTALE_ **


	2. The Hidden Palace - Y'ello!

Coraline groaned as she got her upper body up. She rubbed her head with one hand, feeling sunlight hit her face. Why she didn't even break a single bone?

As soon as she looked around, she realized that she was sitting on a bed of flowers. And they were some of the strangest flowers ever. They were roses of colors she never saw in a rose before, reddish-orange and intense magenta, spread in an erratic pattern.

"Great." She sarcastically commented. "How I'm even gonna get out?"

She lifted herself with her arms and legs, grabbing the stick before taking a better look at the room she was stuck in. Besides the grass, the strange roses, and the sunlight bathing it all, there was nothing in this room. The only way out was a long corridor. She looked hesitant for a few seconds, before deciding, "Come on, I'm better than this! There's got to be some help there..."

The tall, 12-years old blue-haired girl marched forward through the corridor. The end led to a gateway with a strange symbol she never saw before. It was a ring, but with dove-like wings on each of its tips. She tried for a little while to decipher it, but there was no reference to it anywhere as far as she knew. She just shrugged it off with a frustrated groan before going up ahead. But it was the least of the weird things she'd see. The next attraction of weirdness even made her mutter a single word. "... _What?_ "

It looked like a plushie with a cotton-stuffing aspect. It was a yellow triangle with a single, half-cartoonish, and half-realistic eye. Its limbs were black and small, and it wore a black bowtie and tophat. Attached to the latter was one of the weird roses; this one, however, was partially magenta and partially orange. Coraline used her hand to rub her eyes to see if her fantasies were drilling her vision. If someone abandoned that _pretty creepy doll_ there, she just had that person's previous tastes to blame.

But, it was just a doll, right? Perhaps she could just keep walking and casually pass by it-

Except that suddenly, it sprang up and made her scream. And then, the unexpected happened. _It talked_. "WHAT'S WITH THE FACE, BLUEY?" The voice was masculine but very shrill and high-pitched. Plus, it had a little echo.

"You can talk?!" Coraline said, a mix of shock and anger for being suddenly startled. "Who the heck are you, even?!"

"OH, WANNA KNOW MY NAME? WELL THEN!" The cyclops triangle doll said, right before lifting "himself" off the ground and floating in circles around the girl. "Y'ELLO! NAME'S BILL CIPHER! AND I TAKE THAT YOU'RE SOME KIND OF VENTRILOQUIST DUMMY? HAHA, JUST KIDDING! I KNOW THAT YOU'RE A HUMAN."

"So... The tales were real..." Coraline said with some amazement and a sense of wonder... Right after briefly checking to see if her ears were still functioning.

"NO WORRIES, PAL! I'LL JUST GUIDE YA AROUND TO THE BASICS!" Bill Cipher promised and did a finger snap.

Out of Coraline's chest, much to her surprise, something appeared. It was like a cartoon heart, with a magenta half and an orange half, except that it glowed with a strange feeling, and the girl felt bound to it.

"Y'SEE THAT? WE CALL THAT A SOUL!" Bill Cipher began his guidance tour while shrugging off the strange feeling of familiarity he had upon seeing the SOUL. "THAT'S BASICALLY THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE ALIVE!"

The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes with a visible lack of amusement.

"IT STARTS OFF WEAK, BUT YA CAN MAKE IT STRONGER! WITH WHAT? LOVE, OF COURSE! AND I GOT APLENTY TO SHARE!" Bill Cipher continued, before throwing a bunch of things in the air. Little flames of blue color, floating on top of him in a rainbow arc shape. "DOWN HERE, WE SHARE THAT WITH SOME BLUE FLAMES OF FRIENDSHIP! C'MON, YA CAN TOUCH AS MUCH AS YA WANT! NO STRINGS ATTACHED!"

Flames? Coraline squinted at the possibility of flames not only making one stronger but giving them love as well. Plus, the choice of words was a bit too suspicious. "No, thanks." She somewhat rudely refused the offer, stepping backward. Her SOUL followed her seamlessly, avoiding the flames as well.

Now, it was Bill's turn to gain a somewhat unamused look on his single eye as he spoke, "UHHHH, HEY PAL? YA MISSED THE FLAMES. TRY AGAIN!"

Another set of blue flames was summoned, but Coraline once again stepped out of the way. Now, Bill Cipher's temper got tickled real heavily, as he threw his arms down. "ARE YOU BRAINDEAD OR SOMETHING?! _GET, THE, FLAMES!_... OF FRIENDSHIP!"

After dodging the last arc of blue flames, Coraline smirked sassily while saying, "I've got better things to do over falling for your scams."

...What she didn't account for, however, was one neatly planted flame being struck right on her nose as she planned to leave. And Bill's maddened crackle of triumph.

"HAHAHAHA! IT'S SO FUNNY HOW DUMB YOU ARE." Bill Cipher mocked. "THE ACTUAL MAIN RULE HERE IS, YOU EITHER KILL OR ARE KILLED! WHY I'D LET SLIP OFF THE CHANCE FOR A AWESOME PARTY?"

More and more blue flames circled around Coraline and her SOUL, as Bill spoke three chilling words.

" **LIGHTS OFF, BRAT.** "

Coraline tried to find a way around, but the circle of flames kept getting higher and tighter. She also had to endure Bill's victorious, maddeningly mocking laugh, which made it difficult for her brain to focus on an escape plan. She crouched down with her stick pointed upwards, in hopes that at least only her hair would be scorched. ...But nothing happened. In fact, Coraline felt a soothing feeling take over her SOUL.

She and Bill looked around in confusion and bafflement. The yellow plushie was particularly disappointed that things didn't go at all his way. Then, another voice, mildly shrill, feminine, and young-sounding, came in with a yell.

Before he could do anything about it, Bill Cipher was smashed away with a hammer, not unlike one of an amusement park ride. He was out of sight in a fraction of a second.

Coraline took a good glance at her unexpected savior. She was a humanoid hedgehog with pink fur, rose-peach skin, and mesmerizing green eyes that furrowed in rage against the mad living plushie. She had a short red dress, with the same symbol of the gateway on her chest, and no sleeves. She had scarlet shorts beneath the dress, and red-and-white, thick boots.

The hedgehog lady put her toy-looking hammer on a belt. "What a mean demon! Just pickin' on someone too good for him!"

"Yeah... That's one way to put it." Coraline said with a somewhat dry streak as she got up and dusted herself.

The pink, female hedgehog turned to properly face the young human girl. "But have no fear! AMY ROSE, the Hidden Palace's caretaker, is here! I usually come here very often, but it's not that often I see a new kid that fell down here! No worries, I'll guide you here in these ruins! Follow my lead!"

As Amy Rose left forward to, wherever the Hidden Palaces were, Coraline wondered if she should truly follow her. She just met a murderous doll, and while she was saved from it, she wondered for a second if it was for true, altruistic reasons. But it wasn't like she had another way of at least finding a path back home.

With a reluctance sigh, she signed herself to follow the caretaker of the Hidden Palace.


	3. The Hidden Palace - The Twins

After crossing another gateway with the same weird symbol, Coraline saw as Amy Rose climbed one of the two staircases to enter the Hidden Palace. The place was pretty in an eerie way, with purplish-blue being the floor and wall's most dominant color. Vines decorated the entrance that Rose stood by, patiently waiting for the human girl to follow her lead, and there were autumn leaves everywhere.

Before following the closest thing she found so far as a safe figure, Coraline inspected something. A little four-point star, resting right above the big patch of dried leaves between the two staircases. Feeling the shadows of the abandoned Palace right above her head made her feel something curious. Made her feel, _determined_...

She tried to shrug the odd feeling as she followed Amy to a room with spring-shaped switches.

"Make yourself at home here, little one!" The oblivious Amy invited, in a welcoming, enthusiastic but still somewhat maternal tone. "Just give me a few seconds to show how the Hidden Palace works!"

Amy, then, used her hammer to bash four out of the five spring-shaped switches. She proceeded, then, to pull a lever that made the door vanish. "This place has lots of puzzles! As in, a mix of brain teasers and levers and switches. That's how we move from room to room here. I hope you can get used to them!" She tenderly and enthusiastically explained before moving ahead to the next room.

Coraline would try to test the untouched switches, just to see if anything different would happen, but once she found herself with no results, she groaned and just followed the pink hedgehog lady. The next room was much bigger, with some thin rivers and bridges and much more signs.

"You're gonna have to progress here by pushing down several levers! No worries, though. I labeled the specific ones you need!" Amy Rose explained before crossing the first bridge.

The blue-haired girl grew more baffled over how smothering this lady was; it was like she was treating her as one would treat a frail, valuable cup of glass. She even used obvious arrows on the levers, for goodness sake. Barely suppressing a groan of annoyance, she pushed the two labeled levers, making a wall of spikes right behind Amy lower down in an instant. "Congratulations, little one! Let's keep moving!" Amy Rose congratulated the girl before moving ahead.

This room was less wide than the previous one but was decorated with a curious detail. A blueish dummy that looked like the limbless upper half of a jester with big, cat-like eyes. A tag attached to it read "Selph." It was so strangely curious, that Coraline just had to point out, with a pair of furrowed eyebrows, "What's that?"

"Since you're a human traveling in the Underground, the magical beings that reside here might try to hurt you." Amy Rose began to explain. That was a fact Coraline was trying to prepare herself to handle more, considering her first encounter down there. "And for that, you must be prepared. But no worries! It's super easy!" She pointed out at the "Selph" dummy. "If you encounter a magical being, you're gonna enter a Fight. Try to talk with them like a friend! Keep them busy with words, and I'll come to save you! Try to test that with the dummy!"

While observing as Amy stepped right in front of the entrance to the next room, Coraline just wondered how _talking_ would solve someone going to attack her. She was starting to doubt if she was the genuinely cheerful mother figure that she was being painted as, or if she just had a much more elaborate disguise than that freaky triangle doll. Her green eyes, however, held well-meaning desires, so...

With some reluctance, Coraline approached the doll.

"Hey? Hello? Can you hear us?" "We've been following you for quite a while!"

Getting startled once again, Coraline turned around with a frustrated "Hey!" to find the sources of the new voices, only to find - other human children!

These, however, were as odd as everything she was finding down there.

These two were slightly transparent, and with an aura glowing between them. They seemed like a pair of fraternal twins, much shorter height-wise than the blue-haired girl, with chestnut brown hair with a cowlick at the back. The color of their shirt, sweater, and headband was the opposite of Coraline's multiple stripes fierce orange shirt; it was a calm, dull cyan. Despite seeming like twins, they had different physical aspects.

"Uh... Hey." The boy said. He had a much shorter hairstyle and some eye bags. He sounded a bit too serious and old for his appearance.

"What'cha doing here?" The girl asked. She had longer hair, braces, and rosy cheeks. She sounded appropriately preppy for her appearance. "I mean, we saw that you fell, but..."

"You were watching me all along?" Coraline questioned.

"Yes. I can't even believe we're still alive after..." The boy was about to say but quickly muttered something before continuing. "Anyway, sorry for not introducing ourselves earlier. Name's Dipper."

"And this is Mabel!" The girl introduced herself before looking at the dummy. "And I just got the perfect thing for you to say to that fella over there! _A cotton heart and a button eye, you are the apple of my eye!~_ "

"Uhhh, Mabel?" Dipper questioned, gently elbowing Mabel's arm. "I don't think that's a good way to-"

It was too late. Coraline, giving up in making sense of everything going around her, groaned with an eye roll and repeated exactly what the little girl said to the dummy. Except that it lacked some of the attributes of Mabel's words. "A cotton heart and a button eye. You are the apple of my eye."

The dummy, of course, didn't reply at all, creating an awkward atmosphere between the three children. Then, uproarious laughter and cheerful clapping came out of a certain pink hedgehog. "You did amazing! Simply, amazing!"

"Mom!" The two twins said together, with nostalgic joy.

They tried to run to and hug Amy Rose, but... It was like they weren't there. Their arms passed by Amy's body. As she kindly smiled at Coraline and went to the next room, Dipper and Mabel paused, with a catatonically miserable look on their faces.

"Are... You guys alright?" Coraline asked, approached the two twins. "And why you called her Mom?"

They nodded positively, with a liar's smile plastered on their faces, to the girl's first question. The second question, however, was ignored, as Mabel awkwardly offered, "We can keep going ahead..."

Coraline reluctantly accepted, while wondering how, why, and when these strange, contrasting twins began to follow her. The only solid thing she knew about them so far, was that only she could see them.


	4. The Hidden Palace - Rose's Challenge

Now, at this point in her journey through the Hidden Palace, Coraline found herself with three figures with at least well-meaning goals towards her. First, Amy Rose, the insufferably smothering but cheerfully nice caretaker of the Palace. Then, Dipper and Mabel, the two ghostly twins that only she could see and talk to and that contrasted each other by being, as far as she could guess, the smart one and the fun one.

And she suspected the two parties were connected. They did call Amy a _Mom_. It did remind Coraline who she should go back to...

"This room also has another puzzle! I hope you can solve it yourself." Amy Rose explained, before motioning for the girl to follow her.

Coraline, however, waited for the perfect gap of distance. She followed Amy but also waited for the shorter, ghostly twins to follow her, so she could talk with them without being seen as crazy. "How long you two have been here?" She questioned.

"A... _Very_ long while," Dipper confessed.

"Enough that we know a few lots of things about this place!" Mabel added. "We could even work as guides if ya need!"

"Are you sure that's gonna work?" Coraline asked the fellow girl.

"Come on! I and bro-bro know a lot!" Mabel playfully pleaded.

"I mean, I guess we do, but..." Dipper began, not sounding as sure as his sister. "We also don't know what's going on. I mean, exactly! I don't even know why Mom's here and-"

"HEY!" Coraline suddenly shouted, interrupting the boy's speech. It wasn't directed either at him and his sister, though. It was at a little robotic critter that looked partially like a ladybug, but the closest it had to feet was a single wheel. "Get out of my way!" She demanded towards the creature.

Dipper gasped. "Wait! It's a Moto Bug!" He pointed out.

"What if you give 'im a compliment?" Mabel suggested while crouching down to look at the little bug.

Trying to vent out her frustrations, Coraline huffed and did what was probably the best compliment she could give to this magic, yet also robotic little ladybug in a wheel. "Hey! Your wheel is... looking well. Keep it clean!"

The Moto Bug wasn't fully capable of getting Coraline's corny compliment but was flattered anyway. ...That is until a sternly mad Amy Rose branding her hammer came in, interrupting the Fight. The poor ladybug ran away as its life depended on it. Amy's kind and cheerful smile returned to her face as she kept moving ahead, this time, making sure that Coraline was behind her every step.

The next puzzle was... Simply put, weird. Beyond the tiny brown dock that Amy stood in, it was a very short layer of water, with platforms scattered about with springs that took one to the other side. The roof during the platform bit was inexistent, and the walls had figures of large crystals carved onto them along with the typic green vines.

"That's the puzzle! But..." Amy Rose began, some reluctance slipping onto her last word before she suddenly picked Coraline up. "Just hold on very tight for a second!"

Coraline and her phantom companions were about to question what the pink hedgehog meant until it happened. She skillfully jumped across the springs, bouncing between them in a particular zig-zag pattern to avoid the ones that took to watery dead ends. Soon, she and Coraline found themselves on the other side, and the dizzy blue-haired girl was quickly put down. "Nevermind that! It was a bit too dangerous." Amy decided before going ahead.

"...What the heck was that?!" A frustrated Coraline exclaimed after regaining her composure. She wasn't even sure if they - 

"We're here," Dipper informed after tugging the girl's coat, cutting out Coraline's worries.

"We held onto Amy before she jumped!" Mabel informed, being a bit more careful to not refer to Amy as Mom.

"...Thank goodness," Coraline said before following Amy.

Although there was a veil of sarcastic worry on her voice, there was some genuine worry for the brunette twins behind it. They were, after all, one of the very few people aware of what was going on, _and_ willing to help her. Dipper and Mabel picking up on it, plus a curiosity deep inside them, made them decide to keep following the blue-haired girl despite her brash attitude.

"Little one, you did amazing so far! But... The next thing I ask for you to do is. Very hard." Amy Rose said, her preppy mother tone dropping down to something different. A strange sadness and sense of gut-stabbing worry. "You gotta... Walk all the way through this room by yourself. I'm so sorry." She explained, before vanishing up ahead at an inhuman speed.

"...Walk all through this room?" Coraline said, mildly baffled. "How old does she thinks I am?"

While Mabel made an effort to hold a playful snort, Dipper pointed out in a careful way, "She always was like that. But not on _that_ level."

Although the task wore the mantle of a difficult task that turned out to be an insanely easy task, it was pretty boring. The room was somewhat wide but _very_ long, and it felt like hours for Coraline to walk through its entirety. The end was in sight, thankfully, along with a short, stocky pillar close to the left wall. From behind it, emerged the Hidden Palace's caretaker.

"Hi, my little one!" Amy Rose chipperly greeted Coraline. "Don't worry; silly old me would never abandon you without a good reason! I'm glad you trusted me to complete this task because it has a very important reason to happen. ...I wanted to test your independence."

The blue-haired girl blinked for a few seconds. And squinted.

"I gotta work on some things, and unfortunately, leave you all on your own. I recommend you to stay here... But here, take this!" Amy Rose continued, before handing Coraline a phone that could casually date back to the eighties. "It's a cell phone; just in case you need anything from me! Be good, alright?" She explained before heading out with one last tender smile.

...

Coraline looked at the phone, and then at the entrance to the next room. "So, we gotta wait here." She repeated Amy's suggestion to the pair of twins.

"Well, yeah! Duh! She knows what's best for you!" Mabel said as if it was a crystal-clear, obvious fact, with arms wide. Dipper wasn't as loud about this, but his look also hinted he trusted Amy's advice more than any thoughts of rebellion the tall, young girl might be creating.

As the boy glanced a bit at the determined smile Coraline formed, he could only mutter a part of his worries.

"Don't tell me you're gonna disobey her."


	5. The Hidden Palace - Jester Skirmish

Unfortunately, Dipper's vocalized worries turned out to be real. Coraline decided to disobey Amy Rose and venture out on her own through the rest of the Hidden Palace, much to Dipper and Mabel's shared worry. Still, they both did their best to guide the daring girl through her mini-rebellion, even if Dipper's more analytical, serious vision, and translation of the words of the beings the blue-girl couldn't understand, contrasted with Mabel's cherry goofiness and weirdness, which included enthusiastically claiming Coraline was determined while playing in the leaves.

It's not like it'd stop the pink hedgehog lady from being a part of her journey back home, though. Immediately after getting out of the necessarily long pillar room, the old cell phone rang.

_Ring, ring._ "Hi, it's Amy Rose! You stayed in the room as you promised? There are lots of dangerous puzzles out there and I'll have to explain them in detail later! Be good!" _Click_.

After passing by a Moto Bug by complimenting them, she crossed out a room with a faulty floor by using a vent-like gateway on the right of the room below. The cell phone rang right after Coraline and the twins reached a room with a rock to push. Then...

_Ring, ring._ "Hi! Amy Rose is here! I have no much reason to ask this but, what you like most? Vanilla or mint?"

While Dipper and Mabel seemed joyous over "Mom"'s proposal, in spite of not being able to talk with her, they wanted their living ally to decide for herself. Coraline, honestly, was ecstatic over tasting something that didn't have the consistency of slime. Opening one of her first smiles ever since this weird adventure began, she replied to Amy, "Vanilla."

"I see! Thanks a lot!" _Click_.

Then, right before Coraline could take a stab at the rock-pushing puzzle-

_Ring, ring._ "Hi! Amy Rose is here! Just wanna know; you don't _hate_ mint, right? I know you prefer vanilla, but would you turn down mint if it was ever inside your plate?"

"No, Amy, I don't." Coraline grumpily said, while partially trying to ignore a strange sadness on Dipper and Mabel's eyes as Amy's voice began to talk about mint.

"Okay, understood... Thanks for being patient!" _Click_.

Right after taking care of the rock puzzle that removed the spike barrier, and quickly avoiding a shy, robotic bee that Dipper identified as a Buzz Bomber ( _way too timid to have a Bomber in the name_ , Coraline thought), the Hidden Palace's caretaker called again.

_Ring, ring_. "Hi? ...You have some sort of allergy? I, just wanted to know for no real reason! Tee-hee..." _Click_.

While the blue-haired girl looked in confusion over the cell phone, Dipper and Mabel remembered something funny.

The Hidden Palace's stretched to a trio of new rooms. First, a wider and more erratic puzzle of a cracked, faulty floor. Then, three more rocks for Coraline to push, with the twist that the third one was sentient and very hard to pressure to do the exact same thing as their fellow rocks. Then, a room with a mouse hole, another four-point star, and a table where a piece of cold, moldy cheese rested. Perhaps, one day the mouse would find the cheese, and that filled Coraline... with determination. A curious little encounter would happen in the very next room, however.

Atop a pile of leaves on the ground floated another humanoid being, only unlike Rose, they were between the exact border of "human-like" and "alien-like." They wore a jester outfit with red and black stripes, they wore black makeup, and their skin was ash gray. While the gender was impossible to pinpoint, the voice they used to whisper the word Z over and over was masculine and deep.

After sharing a glance of confusion with her short partners, Coraline decided to try and push the jester out of the way. However, he was quick to notice her presence. And to her surprise, his mint-blue eyes were teary, and he held a pathetically sad frown on his face.

It was Mabel's turn to identify the being. "Whoop! Here comes Mister Reala!"

"And this guy doesn't have a sense of humor, apparently..." Dipper carefully inspected.

For the trio's surprise, however, Reala chuckled and spoke, as if he sensed the twin's presence and words, "Heh, I'm a real jester." His tone of voice was bitter and miserable, and for Coraline's misfortune, the tears that fell from his eyes grew in size and became dangerous bullets.

"Hey! You... don't have to feel that down." Coraline tried to cheer the snow-skinned jester. She was frustrated with her current situation, but the jester, as menacing as he looked, invoked a sense of pity on her.

While avoiding the tear bullets, Coraline kept on trying to cheer up the red-and-black wearing jester, until Mabel pointed out, "He wants to show something! Oh-my-gosh, I wonder what it's gonna be!"

"Uh? What is he gonna..." Dipper was about to ask his sister, until Reala's tears began to defy gravity, going upward and joining to make something similar to a ballroom or carnival mask, golden colored, with a shiny pink jewel in between the eyes, and black feathers on the tips.

"This... I call my _persona_." Reala explained, gently tapping the mask with one of his clawed fingers. "Do you like it?"

"Actually... Yeah." Coraline confessed with an amused little grin.

"Oh my goodness..." Reala spoke, startled. "I wander on the Hidden Palace because I can be alone... But perhaps you, ain't horrible. Perhaps, I can get out of your way." He decided, before floating away, leaving a trail of golden dust out of his hands.

"Hey, wait!" Coraline protested, but the jester being fled too fast for her to be able to keep up. She tried to catch a glimpse of the direction he moved to, but it was like he was never there in the first place.

"...yeah, no need to pinpoint it." Dipper immediately broke the awkward silence. "This place's a bit weird."


	6. The Hidden Palace - Welcome Home!

After the little Reala incident, Coraline's travel through the rest of the Hidden Palaces became a bit less eventful.

Amy Rose called Coraline midway to advise about always having space for something one would like. The blue-haired girl had to cross some hole-falling and button-pressing puzzles without Amy's explanations, but as an innate learner, it was a piece of cake. More robot-like animals and insects came on her way, like a crab (Crabmeat) and a caterpillar (Caterkiller) came on her way, but with Dipper and Mabel's aid, she was able to pacify them or dribble them without much effort. She even found two curious items; a dusty bow of black color, and a toy-ish knife. She didn't understand at all the knife's reason to be right at a balcony showing a splendorous view of a distant city, so she just chose to not actively hold it. She did briefly consider putting the bow, though.

Perhaps, to compensate for the lack of events during the last stretch of the Hidden Palace, the finale will be grand.

After coming back from the balcony room and rushing upwards with her ghostly companions, Coraline came face-to-face with a gigantic tree. It looked old, close to black, and with red leaves fallen all over it in a circle. There was only one red leaf still hanging onto one of the tree's branches, and it soon limped and fell down as well.

"That took longer than ever, I gotta confess!" A somewhat familiar (to Coraline), or insanely familiar (to Dipper and Mabel) voice ringed from behind the tree.

Amy did a beeline through the tree, pausing midway to check out her own cell phone before inspecting Coraline. The ghostly twins felt a bit jealous and confused over why they weren't being truly noticed by her yet.

"Oh my gosh! Kid, the heck happened to get you here, and hurt?!" Amy Rose spoke with a loud, immediate worry, before deciding. "Here! Lemme take care of it!"

A soft, mystical gust of pink wind appeared, coming out of Amy's hand as if it was a slithering snake, and then flying over Coraline, healing all the injuries she got. Neither Dipper and Mabel were as impressed with the pink hedgehog's power as Coraline was.

"There you go, kid!" Amy said, more relieved. "I should've gotten to you sooner. It was kinda stupid to scare you like that. ...But, I got something to show you to compensate! Follow me, kid!" She continued, before walking away.

Coraline followed her to find out a house with an entrance made out of blueish crystals, like the rest of the Hidden Palace. Right to its entrance's side, there was a four-point star that she touched, feeling _determined_ over finding such a cozy, welcoming home. Soon, she found herself entering inside.

The inside was vastly different. The main color of the walls, wood, and roof was a very gentle peach. There was a corridor to the left, to the right, and a staircase that took off somewhere else.

"Take a guess of what I did!" Amy Rose playfully challenged the girl. Although she could only see Coraline, both the blue-haired girl and the twins began to sniff the air. Surely, the smell was a mix of sweet and pleasing, and fresh. "It is... a vanilla-mint pie!"

A pie? Coraline never heard about such pie flavor before, but anything that didn't taste like slime would be welcome.

"It was just the perfect thing needed for our arrival!" Amy Rose gleefully explained after taking a look at Coraline's face. "I hope you have a good time living here! And I will eat some worm pie tonight!" She continued before heading to the right corridor.

"Ew!" Coraline reacted in disgust.

Mabel giggled heavily before commenting, "Chillax! It's just normal for her to do that."

While the blue-haired girl was a bit more relieved, she couldn't help but vocalize one of her doubts to the grinning twins. "How do you even know so much about her? Even more than the others?"

The twins' faces gained frowns. They had no answer. Or, perhaps, they had it but didn't want to give it. With a grunt of frustration, Coraline decided to try and follow Amy. The twins followed with a tad bit more hesitation.

At first, without any words, Amy gently took Coraline's hand and guided her to a closeby door. "This is gonna be your room! I hope you love it!" She explained, gently patting Coraline's head before sniffing. "...Oh no, I knew I forgot something! Feel at home!" She exclaimed before rushing straight to the left, presumably to the kitchen. As a frown of disappointment ran through Coraline's lips, she decided to check out the room.

It was cozy-looking, with a closet, a drawer with a photo on top of it, a lamp, toys, a box of shoes, a carpet, and finally, a bed.

A sigh escaped Coraline's lips as she remembered. This place was nice, but it wasn't anything like her old home in Michigan or even the Pink Palaces. She confessed that she briefly forgot her own vow through all this madness. Namely, that, after figuring out what was going on inside this mountain's caves, she'd have to find a way to go back home. But, one step at a time.

She quickly laid on the bed and turned to her companions. "Good night Dipper... Good night Mabel..."

"Night, Coraline." Dipper and Mabel spoke before laying down on the ground, napping before Coraline could offer them a spot on the bed.

Her last few conscious moments were observing the sleeping twins.

...

Coraline suddenly found herself back at home. Or at least, close to it.

She found herself on the steps of Mt. Falls, the entrance of the crazy world she found herself in seconds ago. The sky was nighttime. Footsteps were heard, and a pair of familiar voices spoke together as they came into view.

"Dipper, they're gonna find us! Where we should go?!"

"There, Mabel! There's no way they're gonna find us there!"

A living Dipper and Mabel rushed to Mt. Falls' cave entrance and vanished there. Since Coraline was stuck in place, she couldn't follow them to find out what happened to make them become their current, non-corporeal selves.

Suddenly, it became daytime. Now, it was the turn of a blonde girl in a blue dress with an apron. Sunset; a chubby kid with black hair and a long-haired girl with darker skin and glasses. Dawn; a girl with freckles, and red hair held in a bun. Daytime; a girl with squinted eyes, hair held in a pair of buns, and a red dress running after a boy with spiked buns, and a shirt with a red heart. All of them went inside the mountain just like Coraline, and yet she couldn't follow any of them to know what happened.

After the last two, the world collapsed into nothingness; all that remained was Dipper and Mabel, laying on a bed as if peacefully snoring. A masculine voice she never heard before said, disembodied and echoing through the entire dream.

" _Dipper... Mabel... Never give up, no matter what happens! You two are the future of us, and humans!_ "

Nothing happened after the voice spoke.

Until, suddenly, the twins got up. Their eyes and mouths got black, oozing a thick black liquid. They screamed and laughed until they began to reach their hands in Coraline's direction. Then, they spoke, their voices deeper and more guttural.

" **SINCE WHEN YOU EVER HAD THE CONTROL**?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (For context,
> 
> Blonde girl in blue dress and apron: Alice, SOUL of Patience.  
> Black-haired boy: Steven Universe, SOUL of Bravery.  
> Dark-skinned girl with glasses: Connie Maheswaran, SOUL of Perseverance.  
> Red-haired freckled girl: Félicie Milliner, SOUL of Integrity.  
> Girl in a red dress: Pucca, SOUL of Kindness.  
> Boy with a heart shirt: Garu, SOUL of Justice.)


	7. The Hidden Palace - Torn Rose

Coraline woke up with a loud, horrified gasp. She looked around to find out- yup, she was still stuck in this weird world inside Mt. Falls' cave.

She worriedly glanced at Dipper and Mabel. Why did they come here? The dream _did_ provide a possible, partial answer; they were escaping from something or someone. But what happened to make them this way? Did really other kids come down there too? What happened to them all?

_The toy knife and the dusty bow..._

So, all of them vanished. Then, why the two ghostly twins were still here, even if as ghosts? Could she really trust them? The fact they refused to answer _why_ they knew so much about Amy, and the terrifying face they made on her dream sent some doubts on her mind. Before she could allow herself to doubt more and more, she picked her raincoat and boots and wore them back, and took notice of something set very close to the bed. A slice of the vanilla-mint pie. It felt warm and smelt delicious.

Coraline would've devoured it at first sight, but the dream did make her ignore some of her hunger, and so she decided to save it for later instead.

"Good mornin'..." Dipper and Mabel spoke at different paces while yawning and getting up from the carpet floor.

"I have to find Amy," Coraline said, decided and courageous.

"Why?" Dipper asked while Mabel tilted her head. Before he and his sister could get any answers, though, Coraline stormed out of the bedroom, leaving a slim chance for the brunette-haired twins to catch up.

The room to the left of the snail staircase room also felt warm and receptive. There was a table with three chairs, a bookshelf, gardening tools, and a warm fireplace. Surely, a place a family could enjoy a good meal. But the sassy blue-haired girl a bit too tall for her age wasn't interested in that for now. She focused on a certain figure reading a book while sitting on a big, comfy chair.

"Good morning!" Amy Rose warmly welcomed Coraline. "I just wanna let you know... It's nice to have someone here! I hope to share all my stuff and knowledge with you! And my collection of tarot cards! I've been also thinking about giving you some academic knowledge... Shockin', right? But being a teacher was a dream of mine! OKAY, maybe it's NOT surprising. But I'm glad you can live with me! By the way, you wanted something?"

"I MUST go back home," Coraline said in a serious tone of voice, surprising Dipper and Mabel and catching Rose off-guard.

"Go back home?... Silly, this _is_ your home!" Amy shrugged off with her cheery attitude. "But, wanna read about this book I got here? It's called _Questionably Interesting Facts about Tarot_!"

The girl wasn't interested in any of that. She might think that home sucks, is boring, and has no good food, but it was still her home and her parents. And she wouldn't stick around with someone posing as a Mom, even if she was nice. "How do I leave the Hidden Palace?" She questioned.

"How about this tarot fact? Tarot was actually supposed to be a card game called Taro _cchi_! Cool, right?"

"Please. How, do I, go back? I wanna go back home, with my mom and dad!"

"...I gotta do something." Amy Rose suddenly said, setting down her reading glasses and book. "Stay here." She said before rushing out of the room.

...

"Are you sure you don't wanna stay?" Mabel pitifully asked.

While Coraline's face broke down a little, she nodded her head. "No... I gotta go back home."

"Don't worry, we'll try to help you as long as you need." Dipper decided to step in and promise. After all, this girl was still alive. She seemed to have a true family to go back to, unlike him and his sister. She'd need all guidance possible, even if it wasn't professional.

"Y-Yeah, I guess we will..." Mabel agreed with some reluctance. "Good luck getting past her..."

Coraline took a fifty-percent guess of where Amy could've gone. It was either the snail staircase or the exit of the house. Out of the house and onwards was basically the path Coraline came from, which meant the "basement" perhaps held the answer to how she could get out. Snail staircase then.

A long corridor stretched ahead of the stairs, and relatively close was Amy. Noticing the footsteps of the approaching Coraline, Amy spoke with an eerily calm smile, "You wanna know how to go back home, right? Well, a few steps ahead is the exit of the Hidden Palace. The only way anyone here can go to the Underground. And I'm gonna blast it, so no one can ever leave. Kid, please behave and stay upstairs."

_What?! She can't do this!_ These were Coraline's thoughts as she furiously rushed towards the calmly walking Amy.

"The humans that fall... The same thing happens... And I know it because I met them all. They come, go, and... Die. Kid, please... If you leave the Hidden Palace, he... _Sonic_... will kill you. I'm tryin' my best to protect you! Go back to your room, right now."

That only fueled Coraline's determination to go back to her real parents, instead of making her stop following Amy.

"Kid, enough with following me! DON'T stop me! I gave enough warnings."

"No." Coraline sternly said, while a reluctant Dipper and Mabel followed, scared of their mother's wrath rising.

"You really wanna go back... _You're just like the others_!" Amy Rose furiously proclaimed, drawing her hammer and pounding the floor with it, slightly making it shake before turning to face Coraline with gritted teeth and a serious look on her emerald green eyes. "There's only one way to solve this! _Prove that you're gonna survive out there!_ "

Coraline's bravado vanished in a second. She was, of course, mad that Amy was trying to destroy the only way she could go back to her parents. But having to harm Amy just to get out was too much for her gut to handle. Enough that she was caught off-guard when Amy summoned an offensive gust of pink wind with her hand.

"Coraline? I-I think you really need to go back!" Dipper suggested while a rain of mini-tornadoes showered Coraline's SOUL. "She knows what's better for you!"

"Yeah! We can't peace-talk her out of that one! Better go back!" Mabel said, worried over Coraline choosing the obvious solution Amy was offering for this battle.

But instead, Coraline chose to do something different.

"Amy! I'm not gonna fight you."

Amy stood silent. Even if after three attacks, from her wind gusts, tornadoes and hammer bashes, Coraline did nothing to harm her. Then, she made a noise of utter confusion.

"What'cha doing?" Amy asked, raising an eyebrow before performing a gust attack. "Go back or hit me! What you're even tryin' to prove with that?" She said, looking to the side while a rain of wind that didn't do anything to Coraline's SOUL blew by.

"That I don't need to harm you just to go back home," Coraline stated.

"Fight me or RUN!" Amy demanded, loudly and furiously. Yet, her wind rain that avoided Coraline's SOUL indicated an inner hesitance. "Stop that!... Don't look at me that way! Go away!"

Amy, Dipper, and Mabel were in silence. Coraline still refused to hurt Amy, even if by her demands.

"You must really miss your real home... But please, go back!" Amy said with a pitiful look on her face. "I swear I'll try to take good care of you! There's not much here to do, but... We can live happily here! Why you're making this so hard?! Go, back, to your room!"

Her demands fell on deaf ears. Coraline would neither attack her, neither go back upstairs.

Amy gave out a pitiful laugh. "This is so stupid... You couldn't even save any of the kids you took care of..." She said to herself. Then, after a few moments of silence, a resolve brew inside her, and she lifted her head to look seriously at Coraline's brown eyes.

"Nah, I get it. You'd feel trapped down here. The Hidden Palace is not a big place at all. It wasn't right to trap you in a place like this, far from your real parents... Even if you remind me of certain children, who grew unhappy with their parents... Kid, forget about my ideals, fear, and loneliness. I'll get them outta your way for your sake!"

Amy gently set down her hammer, putting it back on her belt, before continuing. "You're welcome to leave the Hidden Palace any time, kid! Just... please, don't come back here. I hope you get it."

She tenderly hugged Coraline before speaking, "See ya, kid. Good luck with goin' back to your parents."

Then, Amy Rose left to go back to her home, all alone. Only giving one last long look at Coraline.

This battle did mess up with Coraline's heart more than she'd admit. She wiped her tears away and decided that, in her honor, she should try to brave on, and continue. Dipper and Mabel took a little longer to recover, but with some patience, the blue-haired girl waited for them to feel better before continuing.

They crossed a really long corridor behind the door with the weird symbol. After it, however, they found out a particularly not nice surprise...

"YOU!" Coraline furiously pointed at a certain cyclops triangle plush. Dipper and Mabel gasped; they only vaguely remembered him back when he put their partner at bay, and they couldn't help but feel something eerily familiar about his appearance... "What you're even doing here?!" The girl furiously demanded.

" _WELL WELL WELL WELL..._ " Bill Cipher began, sassy and preppy. "THINKING YOU GOT THE SMARTS, BLUEY? THE MAIN RULE HERE: YOU EITHER KILL OR ARE KILLED! BUT YOU BECAME A _REAL_ PUNK. **SPARING THE LIFE OF EVERYONE YOU CAME ACROSS...** "

The last sentence was said in a deeper, more distorted voice. And right afterward, the shrill and high-pitched voice was back, much to Coraline's unease.

"WOW! CONGRATULATIONS! YOU DESERVE A PRIZE LIKE, A HEAD ALWAYS SCREAMING!" Bill Cipher said, oozing with sarcasm. "PROBLEM IS, WHAT IF YOU MEET A PSYCHO LIKE ME? YOU'RE GONNA DIE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, AND EITHER GO CRAZY AND START CHOPPING PEOPLE, OR GIVE UP... AND LET ME HAVE CONTROL OVER THIS WORLD! AFTER ALL, I AM THE PRINCE OF IT! CHILLAX, MONARCH OF THE BLUE KINGDOM, I DON'T WANNA COMMIT REGICIDE! ...I GOT BETTER PARTY PLANS THAN THAT.

_AAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_ "

And then, he teleported before any satisfaction could be given to Coraline.

The mad living plushie was driving Coraline's nerves to its extremes, and she was grateful he didn't stick around much longer. Plus, she didn't have any way to protect herself from his fire bullets besides external aid. Dipper and Mabel somewhat agreed on how maddening Bill was, but his appearance was familiar... And something else as well.

The trio decided to not speak as Coraline crossed the exit gate of the Hidden Palace.


	8. Recording Snow - Inky Pals

Now, Coraline was out of the Hidden Palace, and nearly ready to take on the whole Underground and find a way back home. Problem was, she knew no one outside the gates of the Palace; she only had Dipper and Mabel for company and guidance. This meant, either personal experience with the beings in Hidden Palace would apply to the rest of the Underground, or... Bill Cipher would be right, and there was nothing out but monsters and all sorts of horrible beings.

She honestly wasn't sure anymore... She and her ghostly companions gave one, last look at the Hidden Palace's gates before giving a single step forward.

The ground was covered in soft snow, but it was colored in a strange, dull-white going to gray. It was like a floor coming out of a very old cartoon. The thin, leave-less trees reached as high as Coraline would see. And...

"That's a - " Dipper gave a false cough and throat clearing. " _Camera_ , behind that snowball."

While Mabel snorted with her brother's sarcasm, Coraline absolutely agreed with it.

Coraline continued through the eerie, snowy path, trying to prepare herself for any being that could come across her. There was a stick on the way but, unfortunately, it was too heavy to be carried up, so she just had to step across it... And she swore she heard a loud _snap!_ right behind her a few steps after it. A few more steps in, even farther than where she stood, she heard weird noises, similar to bubbles popping out of the water... Or at least, she swore she heard. Not even the brunette twins were so sure.

Driven by fear, Coraline began to accelerate her steps, offering her hand to Dipper and Mabel in spite of knowing they weren't in real danger like her but were scared just like her. They stopped by a wooden bridge, with very wide wooden bars put together in a choppy, failed attempt at a gate. Then, the blue-haired girl froze. The bubble-like noises were right behind her. Now, it was slightly more clear on what they sounded like; ink. It was like a disgusting mass of inky bubbles rising and forming something.

Then, a voice spoke.

" _H u m a n. Y o u h a v e n o i d e a h o w s w e l l f r i e n d s a r e? C ' m o n, s h a k e m y h a n d._ "

Coraline turned around expecting the worse, while Dipper and Mabel hid behind her, shaking their feet. ...While the being that stood before her was actually just slightly taller than the brunette twins, the demonic appearance shrouded in shadow and the fact Bill almost killed her still made her wary and prepared. The being reached out a hand; it had a glove with two black buttons. The blue-haired girl prepared her feet to run away as she accepted the handshake.

A loud snap occurred as Coraline pressed her palm against the gloved hand's palm, and, for her disgust, she found out her palm was covered in thick, dipping ink. As she frustratedly tried in vain to wipe it off, the being laughed with mischievous joy as their appearance became clear.

Their voice was masculine but had a cheerful tingle like a child. His head floated without a neck, and he had a white stain over his head where his face and large, eight-tooth smile rested. He wore a bowtie, a fluffy hoodie with gray color, black pants, and polished shoes. The appearance, coupled with his erratic fit of laughter and ways to spend it in the span of a few seconds, was like something coming out of a 30's cartoon... Just like the snowy floor.

"Oh, man! The good ol' inky burst trick never fails to hit the laughing spot!" The cartoonish demon said to himself, still with some leftover laugh. Clearly, he wasn't aware of Coraline's non-amused face. "Tell me, yer a human, right?"

"No joke..." Coraline sighed, while still struggling to remove the ink of what she personally judged as an ill-taste prank. While Dipper was still wary, a toothy-grin Mabel began to gradually feel more comfortable around this new fellow.

"That's swell! 'cuz I'm Bendy, the Lil' devil darling! Or just Bendy; whichever you prefer!" Bendy presented himself, pressing his thumb against his chest. "It's actually my job to be on the look for boys and gals like you, but... I prefer to get on some nice antics and wholesome mischiefs! But my best pal, Boris the Wolf... He wants to get any human! At any COST! In fact, I think he's right there!"

_A wolf that hunts down humans? What a fairytale rip-off!_ Coraline thought to herself while turning around. Neither she nor the twins found anyone in the distance.

"No worries, pal! I got a _plan_." Bendy playfully said, stepping towards Coraline's side. "Just go _right_ through this gate thingy! My best pal made the bars a bit too wide to stop anyone."

As if physical logic vanished and reality became a cartoon (wasn't like magical powers already made a bend on reality anyway), Bendy picked Coraline's hand and just dashed like crazy through the gate. The twins had a hard time following their partner and the "Lil devil darling" due to the unexpected burst of speed. The place where they stopped had a sentry station with a roof covered in snow, and...

"Behind that convenient lamp, pal!" Bendy pointed out to a lamp extremely similar to Coraline standing by the side. The absurdity of it all was getting less under her skin but didn't mean it _wasn't_ getting in. Soon, she hid behind the Coraline-shaped lamp.

Right in the nick of time, another being came in. "That has to be Boris..." Dipper whispered onto Mabel and Coraline's ears. pointing at the new fellow. Indeed, while he looked as black-and-white cartoonish as Bendy, including the pie-eyes, he had a canine aspect. He had long ears and snout, freckles on the latter, and rosy cheeks. He wore a black scarf, pants and shoes like Bendy's, and a white shirt. And his gloves weren't as detailed as Bendy's.

"What's up, best pal?" Bendy greeted Boris with a wink while pulling a J-shaped pipe out of his back.

"Bendy, you know what's up," Boris said; his voice was a bit lower and gruffer than the mischievous demon's voice. "I thought I was the simpleton, but buddy... You didn't even bother fixin' your puzzles. You're just looking for trouble outta your station. What'cha even doing, anyway?"

"Giving this neat lamp a nice look!~" Bendy said in a sing-song voice, using the pipe on his hands to make a little dance as he spoke. "Wanna tale a look at it with me?"

"No, Bendy... I got no time for that!" Boris replied, his chill tone of voice wavering as he showed an assortment of sharp fangs. "What if a human falls? I gotta be ready. I gotta try to be the one. I gotta get a human..." He continued, before allowing himself to half-heartedly pose with a smile and the wind blowing on his scarf. "'cause I, the Cool Boris, will get nice things. As in, some swell food... And a shot at being a Royal Guard. Maybe I'll even get requests for, well, _friendship?_... Got no idea, really."

"Hmm..." Bendy thoughtfully said, before opening his large grin. "That lamp might help ya!"

" _Bendy_... You lazy-inky. You ain't helping at all..." Boris said, frustrated and giving himself a facepalm. "I already said it; you're just lookin' for trouble and mischief. It's like if I don't look, you'll get crazier every day."

"Chillax! At least, neither of us are in a... _Sticky_ situation!" Bendy proudly stated, while winking at you.

" _Bendy...!_ " Boris huffed, trying to relax in midst of the horrible pun.

"C'mon pal, I see a smile!~" Bendy playfully pointed out. Even the hiding Coraline was smiling a little, while Dipper's belly ticked and Mabel gave up and already laughed on the floor. At least, she wouldn't be able to reveal Coraline's hideout due to not being corporeal.

"And that ain't swell at all." Boris grumpily stated. "It's hard to give my all when I don't even have enough recognition back..."

"Don't worry, pal! Keep trying!" Bendy said, encouraging and sweet... Right before spoiling it. "I just hope ya never become a... Where-Wolf!"

"Good golly gosh..." Boris took a deep breath and huff. "Lemme just take care of my puzzles. And, about yours? Put a Lil' more... metaphorical _pepper oni_ onto them. _Wrah ha ha ha ha ha!_ " He said with a grin, before leaving the scene. ...Briefly returning for one last " _Wrah._ "

...

"Alright, pal! You can come out!" Bendy informed.

The whole scene was actually pretty amusing for Coraline. Enough to make her wear a smile as she approached Bendy. It was like watching a live cartoon from the '30s. Dipper and Mabel's fear of him somewhat disappeared, even if the first sight and words were still imprinted on their minds.

"Hey, pal...? It's better if ye keep stepping up." Bendy suggested, looking at Coraline with one open pie eye. "He's gonna come back, and if he does... You're gonna have to watch more of my amazin' antics and puns! But. Can ya make a promise to me?"

The blue-haired girl, with her mood a bit more lifted than before, nodded positively.

"My best pal isn't really trying his best lately..." Bendy said, his tone of voice getting a bit more low and serious. "He never met a human, and I think if he sees you, a bit of his old him is gonna come through. Don't worry, he's not dangerous! Ya just don't need to get on his snack's way."

"...I'm gonna try." Coraline decided, even if a bit reluctant.

"Thank ya! I'm gonna be right up ahead!" Bendy said with a grin... Before heading in the exact opposite direction of where Coraline was planning to go. Before he could be "corrected," though, he vanished in a puddle of bubbly ink that sank through the floor. Perhaps, the same way he appeared right behind her. What remained was a simple stain in the snow.

"Are we gonna see them again?" Mabel wondered.

"No idea," Dipper confessed with a shrug.

"Yeah, let's just... Go." Coraline said, sighing as she turned around to keep going. At least, the raincoat and boots were protecting her from the cold air and snow wetness.


	9. Recording Snow - Snow Hijinks

Coraline and her ghostly companions would step in inside an icy wonderland in '30s style. Or, how the partially snow-covered wooden stick with pointy signs indicated...

"RECORDING SNOW! _West - Snow. North - And Snow. East - Recording Town. South - ...More Snow_."

_Recording Town...?_ Dipper and Mabel thought. The town name gave a familiar ring on their partially-foggy memories.

Coraline sighed in relief after reading the signs; there was at least one town up ahead! Maybe with the gold coins that the beings she was sparing were giving her would help on making her belly feel a bit more full. After checking the chest nearby and finding a pink, rose-emblazoned shield and a rose charm, the blue-haired girl decided to continue right, the direction that'd take her to the town. But to her surprise, a certain pair of black-and-white refugees from a '30s cartoon was already right on the horizon.

"And... That thing with Yumi, ya know..." Boris said, in the middle of a topic with Bendy, before his ears began to peek with Coraline's presence.

Then, he looked at Coraline. Then, Bendy was looking at Coraline and Boris at Bendy. And they kept going, going and going until they became literal tornadoes of confusion. As both paused, they were dizzily staring in Coraline's direction.

"Good golly gosh! Was that... a human?" Boris asked his pal, as his coolheaded, slow tone of voice began to speed up with joy, and a toothy grin took over his face.

"Sorry, pal... But I think that's a rock!" Bendy pointed out at a rock a few feet behind Coraline, much to Dipper's mild exasperation. "But what's _that_ in front of the rock?"

"It is...!" Boris said, before lowering his voice so only the playful demon could hear. "It's a human, right?"

"Yuppity!" Bendy cheekily replied.

Boris's grin grew even wider as he imagined how Yumi would be proud of this finding. Much prouder than the drawings he painted and the food he cooked before... He'd become at least mildly known! Coraline, though, was kind of getting worried with the sparkles appearing on the cartoonish wolf's pie-cut eyes.

"Don't worry! He _might_ not eat you." Mabel tried to reassure her and her brother's partner.

After noticing his lack of manners, Boris began to clear his throat and go back to his more casual tone. "Human, I'm afraid I gotta blow you outta here. As in, I, the Cool Boris. And I guess I'm gonna catch ya, send ya to the Capital... And I'm not sure where to go. Anyhow, just continue if ya feel brave enough for it." He spoke, proceeding to leave with the same _Wrah hah hah_ laugh as before.

"...That went pretty swell!" Bendy concluded, unwittingly interrupting a Dipper statement from happening. "Don't worry about it, pal! I'll keep an eye on ya! Promise." He vowed, before doing the bubbly ink sink on the snowy floor again, leaving an ink stain behind.

"Great..." Coraline groaned and huffed.

"Eh, I wouldn't worry! That guy looks a bit too, soft. I'd put it." Dipper did a partially more successful comfort attempt than his sister.

After encountering refugees from a land of sugarbowl (such as a single-eyed puffball telling ice-related jokes and a living snowman that wanted attention drawn to his cap), and a sloppily made but beautifully decorated sentry station made by Boris, one-by-one, Coraline had to face off members of the "Royal Guard" and Boris' puzzles.

Even by this point, the cheerfully casual Mabel was wondering how the blue-haired girl was putting up with Boris puzzles that went from failed button-pressing and tile-crossing, and with a ball-shaped artist, a living sun and moon, and the other beings that came across her path... All, without considering simply snapping and deciding that violence was better.

Whatever it was, pragmatism or a genuine sense of morality, Dipper and Mabel couldn't help but agree that maybe, this human was different.

As they said to Coraline after she used her wits to win a Ball Game laying on the snow... "You can keep trying, but you're just being yourself."

After a long while, Coraline finally reached a bridge. In the distance, she could tell something was right behind it... A town! Could it be the Recording Town she was seeking by going east? Dipper and Mabel's positive head nods showed their hopes that it had to be the one. For a moment, she forgot how sore her legs actually were and began to sprint towards it.

...And she took a deep breath as she realized the two inkblot partners-in-crime were blocking her way.

"Human... This is the last - and I gotta say, hardest - of the challenges!" Boris began, his voice reaching a peak of new, brand enthusiasm that was just building up with each of the previous puzzles. "The Gauntlet of Terrific Horror."

Six gigantic items that ranged from a mace, to a flaming torch, to a spear, to a little brown cat with glasses, appeared up and above Coraline's head, making her gasp.

"To put it simply, every single bit of this will move up and down, making your passage here near impossible. Unless you by a golly miracle, well, pull off a miracle!" Boris cheekily explained. "And you better count your seconds... 'cause I! Will! Activate it."

Except that, nothing happened.

"...Hey, old pal! What's the holdup?" Bendy questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Whaddya mean, Bendy? I'm just gonna activate it." Boris tried to protest.

"That lady's not looking very lively!" Bendy pointed out. It wasn't clear if this lady was Coraline or the Gauntlet itself.

"On second thought, maybe the Human is gonna get across this too easily." Boris realized, after taking a quick second glance at his own Gauntlet. "Yup, not gonna use it. 'cause I am a wolf with _standards_. I at least try to put any effort into most of my stuff, but this? Gosh, it's so late ten decades. Bye for now."

The Gauntlet was dismantled and faded into nonexistence. Boris then turned towards Coraline and said, "Don't ya dare think this victory is yours." He said, half-jokingly, before taking his leave.

"...well, that was super easy!" Mabel enthusiastically spoke, and Dipper and Coraline unceremoniously agreed. "Guess we are gonna finally step on Recording Town!"

Before that truly could happen, though, for Coraline's shock and partial discomfort, Bendy "detached" his own floating head from its original position, and held it close to her, before saying a piece of pretty strange advice. "Toots, I got no idea what my old pal's gonna do. If I was ya, I'd watch out for the yellow attack." Then, he reattached his head and, once again, sunk himself in the snowy ground.

A yellow attack? Coraline only ever saw two variations of the magic bullets being thrown at her SOUL; one blue, to stand still through, and rarely, green ones that soothingly healed her. Was Bendy trying to pull her leg or joke with her? Or was it actually serious?

Anyhow... Recording Town was right up ahead.


	10. Recording Snow - The Town

Finally, here Coraline and the brunette, ghostly twin companions of hers arrived.

_Welcome to Recording Town!_ That was the sign that informed everyone of the calm little town, that felt perfectly ready for a Christmas celebration.

Slightly up ahead was another four-point star. Which reminded Coraline that, the sight of such a whimsical, but friendly-looking town, made her feel _determined_. Unlike the mostly timid, contained dwellers of the Hidden Palace, the inhabitants of the town that she tried to talk to held a cherry aura, similar to a cartoon. A certain pair standing by the large Christmas tree with presents, in particular, caught her attention.

They had a contrast very similar to her own companions Dipper and Mabel; one was boyish, the other was girly. Although, judging by the eyelashes of the former, both were females. The boyish one was red-colored and had afro hair, the girlish one was cobalt blue and had long, puffy hair that covered the upper half of her face. Both wore stripped clothes coded after their main colors.

"Hey! Are you a kid too?!" The red one called Coraline's attention.

"How did you know?" Coraline raised an eyebrow.

"It's because you might be wearing a striped shirt." The blue one calmly explained. She indeed was right, much for Coraline's amazement; beneath the yellow raincoat was a long-sleeved, orange striped shirt. "Oh, the names are Sapphire and Ruby."

"Hope we see ya again!" Ruby waved to the blue-haired girl. That was one curious pair... She wondered if they'd ever cross paths again.

As she kept wandering around, taking bites out of a star-shaped cinnamon dessert she found in the mild local store, Coraline gradually got more bits of what was going on in this Underground world she was trying to get out of.

First, Recording Town had no mayor; instead, the problems were reported by "a wolf" to a light blue-skinned rockstar lady. The wolf was Boris, certainly, but the rockstar lady was a mystery. And second, there was a crisis in the Underground despite the cheery attitude of the town; no sunlight, a sense of dread, and a crowded population. Those bits of information certainly seemed to affect Dipper and Mabel's emotional spirits, for reasons that Coraline couldn't decipher.

Her check-around journey through the cartoonish town came to an end with three buildings and the peculiar details of one of them.

First, what seemed like a bar or a restaurant called Slendys. Then, the home of the inky partners-in-crime, Bendy and Boris, which was decorated for Christmas just like the rest of the town, but was inaccessible. All she could notice from the house beside it was how the mailboxes contrasted with each other: Bendy's was full of unread mails to the point of overflowing, but Boris' was empty. And at last, a cabin close to Bendy and Boris' home that was locked from the inside.

"Hey... You look tired. You should take a break." Dipper carefully pointed out to Coraline's face.

She didn't have either the perfect mood and the energy necessary to protest or sass with the ghost boy back, so she just nodded her head in agreement and began to head back through the town. Mabel, in an attempt to add a bit of sugar to Coraline's sour mood, began to gently hold one of her hands as she and Dipper accompanied her. Then, she spoke gently and softly, "It's alright. You're gonna be able to deal with whatever's ahead soon."

The _Recorded Inn's_ price for a stay was 80 gold; a bit exaggerated for some, and nothing compared to what Coraline saw before. The room that was rented for her was pretty simple and straightforward, with just a bed and two tables. The bed just kept reminding her of the home she had to go back to... And the guardian she had to leave behind. She wondered for a few good minutes how Amy was doing without her.

"Goodnight guys..." Coraline said, a bit too tired to call Dipper and Mabel by name. They nodded in silence, seemingly also trapped in their own thoughts, as they proceeded to lay down on the floor and sleep.

Another dream happened. This one, as the opposite of the previous one, felt more like a prophecy rather than a vision of the past.

Every figure present on it, besides herself, was foggy and impossible to decipher the shape of. The dream began with her fighting a blue, fast blur, and it was a long, intense battle. After the figure fell to its knees, she hugged it only for it to burn in a cyan-blue flame. A yellowish being appeared, and absorbed six colorful balls, before growing gigantic and proceeding to crush her SOUL with what seemed to be a fist.

Coraline woke up in a startle big enough to wake up both Dipper and Mabel. "Wh... Guys? I had another dream." She began. "I was fighting something blue but a yellow being burned it and began to hurt me!"

Blue being? There was only one the twins could recap from the top of their heads... Dipper and Mabel gasped in horror and began to whisper to each other.

"Guys! Are you not gonna tell me anything?!" Coraline protested, frustrated in being kept out of the loop and having to figure out most of the stuff on her own. When the twins noticed, they turned to face the blue-haired girl with pitiful looks on their faces.

"Coraline... Please don't fight the blue blur once you meet him." Mabel begged. The worry for whoever this blue blur was clear in her voice.

Coraline took a deep breath and decided, "Okay, fine..."

"And, watch out for the yellow one," Dipper warned; but the trio already knew who the most likely candidate for it was.

After getting out of the Inn (finding out along the way that, despite feeling completely rejuvenated, she just spent two minutes sleeping and she could have her golden back for not staying overnight), Coraline looked to her partners and the horizon. Well... Nothing to do except go on ahead and find out what'd happen.


	11. Recording Snow - Sheepsongs

Coraline observed the path ahead of the friendly Recording Town she was walking into. It was between long and narrow, and behind the snow-covered trees, she could see a lot of water. As she and her companions could slowly notice, the further ahead she went, more of the path was covered in a dense, blueish-white fog. It went to the point that only silhouettes could tell who was there.

And just like she feared, one of the cartoonish partners-in-crime was there to greet her.

"Human." Boris began. "I got some pretty complex feelings for ya. Feelings like... Finding another snack lover like me. Another creative soul kinda like me. A person that can tell the other's qualities. Those things... I good gosh golly betcha you're feeling them now!"

Coraline just shook her head negatively to that. While she was growing more appreciative of the artistic, initially dispassionate wolf that was easily distracted by his hunger and love for snacks, she just didn't feel like she shared the same interests as him. Mabel did get a chuckle out of this situation, for Dipper's exasperation.

"Can't even imagine how boring is that. After all, I kinda am cool. I know having tons of friends is _swell_. I'm feelin' sorry for ya, lonely Human fella..."

That, somehow, felt like a sore spot on Coraline being recognized... How much she missed her friends back from Michigan, with her only memento of them being a photo. Perhaps, her face contorting into one sad frown was helping Boris gather his points.

"Don't worry, little Human fella! You're not gonna be that lonely. 'cause I, the Cool Boris, is gonna be your..." Boris interrupted himself, sighing with disappointment. It was like the excitement of finally meeting a human to capture eroded. "I can't be ya pal. You're a human. I gotta capture ya; it's the only way I can get my dreams realized. Well, here I come; Boris the Wolf, the most brand new member of the Royal Guard."

Coraline's SOUL appeared in front of her body, indicating she was pulled into a battle.

"Uh-oh! Boris is blocking the way!" Dipper pointed out.

"And he likes to laugh like this! _Wrah hah hah!_ " Mabel decided to joke around and imitate Boris's laugh in his gruff, Brooklyn-accented voice. For her delight, Boris ended up repeating his classic laugh...

Unfortunately, the joy lasted for only a few seconds, as Coraline moved around to avoid a pencil covered in ink. She had to figure out a way to make him stop. There was one between two ideas on her head, in Mabel's favor and Dipper's disapproval.

"Hey! Ain't you a... Pretty handsome wolf in the moonlight?" Coraline did a hilariously awkward attempt at a flirt.

Boris's cheek blushes grew bigger and his ears lowered as he realized he was being flirted with. "Hey! I'm a wolf with high standards, ya know, so-"

"I can try to make food," Coraline explained.

"Welp. You've met my standards." Boris sheepishly realized. "Does that mean I gotta date you? Sure pal, we can do it!... After the battle."

Coraline kept trying to awkwardly flirt with Boris, much to the twin's frustration/amusement. While it did make him lose his focus on his inky pencil attacks, creating easier gaps to cross and not take too much damage, it got to a point where the advances were ignored.

"Oh... Seems like we can't escalate that battle anymore with flirting!" Mabel pointed out.

"Uh, Mabel? I think she knows now." Dipper sourly pointed out, before turning his attention back to Coraline. "What you're gonna do?"

Taking a deep breath over Dipper's question, Coraline turned to face Boris and spoke, "I'm not gonna fight you despite what you did!"

"Ya ain't gonna brawl, then?" Boris said, focused, before pointing upwards. "Then, ya gotta be prepared for my yellow attack."

The yellow attack that Bendy warned about... How was it gonna be like? Coraline tried to prepare herself for anything; she knew whatever could happen was gonna be tricky. ...But, to her surprise, it was just a bunch of vertically-positioned pencils coming from above and avoiding her SOUL. Something extremely simple to avoid. That made her get distracted from the true purpose of the move.

Boris pulled out one of his pencil bullets and aimed directly at her SOUL. However, instead of being damaged, there was an inky splash noise, and her SOUL changed. Now, instead of being a normal heart with an orange half and magenta half, it was turned up and yellow all over. On her hand, was a large, sharp structure also colored yellow.

"What the heck-" Coraline was about to question it all again, before being cut out by a "WATCH OUT!" from Dipper and Mabel.

More gigantic pencils came down, but this time, they didn't move out of Coraline's SOUL way. She had no idea of how to handle the sword-like projection, so she just swung it like a bat at the pencils. They pushed the pencils to the sides, protecting the girl from damage. While she recovered her breath, she spotted Boris with a sassy, toothy grin on his face.

"Yer _yellow_ now. And that was my attack."

Mabel gasped. "Coraline! You're yellow now!" She stated as if it was a groundbreaking scientific discovery.

"And that's supposed to be new?" Dipper sarcastically pointed out.

The negative side of it was, Boris wouldn't let himself be distracted anymore by actions, which meant Coraline had to restrain her frustrations while dodging his attacks. The positive side was, her SOUL's new form made her able to defend herself against Boris' pencils, the pencil's ink drops, and even clarinet notes, by pushing them out of the way or shifting their color to blue so she could stand still through them.

"To be honest? I can taste almost all the success here." Boris spoke as he directed his bullets at Coraline's SOUL. "Boris the Wolf; Head of the Royal Guard, and boy! Best painter in the kingdom. Yumi's gonna find me cooler, the King's gonna make a cloud in my honor and Bendy... Yeah, maybe my old pal's too rotted on his ways to change. But... Golly, what's like being admired by anyone else other than you? Yer a rare kinda fella, and this date might not be the greatest ball if you're captured and sent away."

So... A bit of the flirt did get under Boris's black fur.

"But, nevermind. Ya better surrender, or ya gotta face off my **special attack**."

Okay, not enough to persuade him to stop. The next few words of Boris were about how he was gonna use that "special attack" to stop Coraline from going further, until finally... "Here comes, **my special attack**!"

Before it could actually happen, though, the brown cat with glasses from before came in and bit on a large pencil. "What the... Hey, that's my special attack!" Boris said, frustrated, trying to get the cat to give back his attack. But they just kept biting it as if it was a tasty chicken wing, and eventually left the scene altogether with it.

"Welp... Guess I just gotta do a regular, everyday attack." Boris muttered to himself before turning his attention to Coraline and speaking without much enthusiasm, "Here comes an easy, normal attack."

_Easy_ and _normal_ was overstretching it, but Coraline didn't have much to fear in a painting frame riding a skateboard, the clarinet coming to life or the largest pencil that Boris could muster. She mustered her will in using the SOUL's yellow color's ability to push it around. By the end of the attack, however, it was evident how both "combatants" were tired.

"Pal... It's clear now..." Boris spoke among huffs and puffs. "Ya can't get me. Yer shaking under those boots! So I, the Cool Boris, decided to give ya a big honor. I'm gonna spare ya, and this is your chance to do the same for me."

_Finally_ , both Coraline and her ghostly companions thought as Coraline's SOUL came back to normal and she _spared_ the cartoonish wolf. The fog disappeared, and a clear look of pity, accompanied by a howl to the moon (or to the Underground's cave's roof), "Can't even care enough to beat someone like ya... Yumi's not gonna like this, I busted my chances at the Royal Guard, and I'm just gonna be 1/4 lonely."

As Boris poured out his woes into words, Coraline looked back at Dipper and Mabel. The former could understand what this loneliness felt like, even if it was a very fresh feeling. And judging by the ghostly twin's faces, they knew how it was like as well. "Hey." The blue-haired girl reached out her hand. "I do know how it's like to feel that lonely. Can I make it up by... I don't know, being your friend?"

Boris's ears perked up. "Golly! Ye wanna be friends with my kind? Guess I... Can open up a door for ya!" He decided. "Good gosh golly! I'd never have guessed that to be in the friend zone with a brand new pal... Was give cheap puzzles and a swell battle? Thanks, pal, ya taught me tons."

"You're welcome," Coraline said with a little smile. She was a bit busy to be aware of Dipper and Mabel's bigger, proud smiles.

"So I'm gonna let ya pass, and give the signs to the Surface!" Boris continued. "First, ya continue till ya reach the end of this cave. Then, when ya get to the capital, cross the barrier. That's what keeps all of us down here, and anything can come in, but nothing can come out... except for a being with a strong enough SOUL. Like ya! And that's why the King wants a human; he wants them to open the barrier for us, magic beings, to come back to the Surface."

The Underground had a King? Coraline gave a brief glance to her ghostly companions, and their faces went a little bit pale as if the King was familiar. ...Did they meet their doom at his hands? She turned her glare back to Boris for explanations.

"Good gosh golly! Almost forgot... Before ya get to the barrier, ya gotta cross _the King's_ castle. _The King of the magic beings... How can I say it..._ The guy's the cooler personification of justice! Everybody thinks he's the life of the ball. I'm sure ya just gotta say, _Mr. King, can I pass the barrier please?_ , and he's gonna be able to show the way faster than ya can blink!"

Well. That shut down Coraline's mini-theory.

"Anyway, I got enough words outta my mouth. I gotta hit home's door and be the sheepish artist that I am." Boris spoke. "Feel free to knock on the door and have that date!" He offered before leaving back to Recording Town with his trademark laugh.

A few minutes between Coraline, and the shorter ghostly twins, were spent in silence as cold as the snow of Recording Snow.

"Oh my gosh! Congrats! You got a date with a wolf!" Mabel cheerfully spoke. "Not exactly a werewolf, but it's still ama-"

"Mabel!" Dipper called out, a bit frustrated with his sister's silliness. "No need to make this more awkward for her than it already is."

While the twins talked, Coraline just gave a little peek of what was beyond Recording Snow. It seemed like the water only kept expanding, and there seemed to be shades of deep green everywhere. But, that'd have to be reserved for later. Because she dragged herself for a date with a wolf.


	12. Recording Snow - Date with a Wolf

Coraline walked through Recording Town while holding Dipper and Mabel's hand so they wouldn't get lost. She retraced her steps back to the house of the '30s cartoon refuges, and Boris was already by the entrance door as if expecting her eagerly for it. And that, for her... was honestly somewhat creepy.

"Good gosh golly! Ya really came back for that date!" Boris noticed the now-familiar blue streaks of hair and the dragonfly hairclip. "Ya gotta mean this... This means I gotta take ya to a pretty likable place in my eyes. My good ol' home!" He said, before heading in with rubber hose elasticity to the door, opening it, and entering, leaving the door open so the girl could come in.

Besides the fact the house only had a very dull shade of gold and black for colors, it was relatively less zany than what Coraline could expect.

On a long table right to the entrance door's left, laid Bendy's J-pipe. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be a bit old, and with some light scratches at the handle. "That's Bendy's pipe. The guy has a bad tendency to carry it around and dance with it at the most unfortunate times... And yeah, I gotta tolerate it. At least he's not a cement mixer."

The couch jiggled when Coraline pushed it, much for her and her ghostly twin companion's amusement, and as she noticed some sparkles inside it, she reached her hand out to find 20 pieces of gold. And to her shock, an open pot of ink that dated back to at least ninety years ago. And around it, some papers with notes, that seemed to switch between Boris and Bendy's point of views.

" _Bendy, please pick the spoiled ink._ " " _Oki Doki!_ " " _Ya can't put it back down, keep moving it..._ " " _Oki Doki!_ " " _...Pal, ya can't just move it two inches and call it a day._ " " _Oki Doki!_ " " _And don't put it back here._ " " _Ya got it!" "Nah, ya didn't._ " " _Whaaat? Ya said I shouldn't bring it back to my room!_ " " _Never mind._ "

As Coraline took a peek at the television, Boris pointed out joyfully. "Isn't that swell? My favorite show's about to start!" The television initially just showed a no-signal screen, but a message began to run through it.

_STAY TUNED FOR THE NEW SHOW! - NT_

"Hey... I thought it was better than this." Boris said with some skepticism. "Don't ya judge me for finding this bad but... This is bad."

Coraline couldn't help but agree, but there wasn't anything else on? Besides, she'd quickly run to the next thing. A much smaller table, with a book of jokes resting on top of it. When she opened it, she found out it also held another book, whose topic was quantum physics. Except for the fact that this book also held another joke book, and that other joke book also held a quantum physics book...

"Let's just stop right here," Dipper suggested while tucking Coraline's raincoat. Mabel agreed with a silent head nod and, Coraline agreed too, momentarily forgetting that she'd get looks of confusion for talking to what others could judge as air.

On the next room was another television, a trash can that Coraline felt invited to, a fridge, a... way-too-tall sink, and a stove.

"My pal's always out for the snacks," Boris began when Coraline approached the stove. "But lately he tried to bake something. Kinda like... Caramel candy. Unfortunately, didn't work out 'cause he forgot he had to cook longer."

The fridge did have the contents of an average fridge on the Surface. At least on the right half. The only thing that was partially confusing about it was the bread, but it wasn't as bad as the left half, which didn't have anything but a black-colored, empty sack of candy.

"Okay... But why is your sink so big?" Coraline decided to point out.

"It's so I can fit more pencils inside! Swell, isn't it?" Boris explained. "Ya can take a lil' peek if ya like."

But when Coraline opened the sink's door, there weren't only pencils stored inside. There was the brown cat too, with one of the ink-covered pencils on their mouth, giving out an adorable meow before jumping out of the sink and rushing to the door, with Coraline and Boris unable to catch it.

"Darn it..." Boris swore under his breath.

As if it was planned, right afterward, Bendy opened a door upstairs and peeked out of it, with a horn, and with it, he played a stereotypical losing tune before quickly going back. "Bendy! Stop playing fitting music at the wrong times!" Boris protested with his best friend. Coraline, meanwhile, had to struggle with containing a chuckle, not only because of the meddling cat but because of Dipper and Mabel's laughter. "Let's just... Forget about the sink." Boris suggested, disheartened.

Upstairs, there were two pairs of rooms. The right door which Bendy used to peek out of had colorful lights beneath it, but no matter what, Coraline couldn't open it. This made Dipper and Mabel a little bit less trustful of the cartoonish demon, and Coraline suspicious of what he could be doing. The left door was open with ease, and as Boris followed her, he said, "That's my room! If ya are done lookin' around, we can go in and!... Do datey-stuff, I guess."

Boris's room was as straightforward as it could be, with a box full of pencils that Coraline initially assumed to be for painting (" _Those were my attacks!"_ ), a bed shaped like a very old car ( _When I get on the Surface, golly... I'd wanna ride something like that_.), a set of childish action figures resting on a table ( _They're thrilling for combat training!_ ), a bookshelf ( _"The ending to this book always catches Bendy..."_ ), and even a computer not unlike her Dad's that showed the Internet (" _I'm not that known there, but I betcha I will soon._ ").

"I can say this is a pretty neat spot for a date!" Mabel concluded, with pride on her smile and hands on her hips. Dipper, meanwhile, could only try to wonder how crazier this was gonna get from here.

"So, if ya are done checking around... Can we start the date?" Boris asked the blue-haired girl.

"Sure..." Coraline agreed with some reluctance.

"Alright-o!" Boris announced. " _It's dating time!_ And here we are, on our swell date!... And to be honest I never done any of that before. But it's not that bad, right? Ya can't say _born_ from _born ready_ without two letters from my name."

First, there was a lack of amusement on Coraline's face. Second... How could one even come prepared for a date in the first place?

"Let's just say I borrowed this dating rulebook from the library and leave it at that," Boris explained, showing said rulebook on one of his hands. It didn't come out as a big surprise to Dipper as it was to Coraline when Mabel briefly tried to reach out for it, before forgetting she could only interact physically with Coraline. "Which means we are good to go! _Step one, press the C key on our keyboard for **dating hud**_ -"

"What?!" Coraline cut off Boris. "Excuse me but, what do you mean hud? We're not inside a game!... Right?"

There was no real answer to that. Dipper and Mabel looked unsure, perhaps a bit intimidated by the very idea. Boris just stood, with the book right on his nose and between his eyes, in stunned silence, for a few seconds. "...Eh, nevermind. Let's just move on to step two! Will ya go on a date with me?"

"I... Am already doing that. Or trying to." Coraline pointed out.

Boris's eyes grew full of sparkles as he replied. "Seriously? We are movin' very fast to part three then! _Step three, wear nice clothes to show ya care_. ...Wait a sec, nice clothes? That strange clip on your hair... You are wearing it right now. And you were wearing it back a few hours ago too." His blush stickers grew bigger and warmer. "Does that mean... Ya wanted to date me ever since ever?"

Coraline would answer straight away with a lie, but Dipper gently hit her with his elbow to catch her attention with a whisper, "This is getting out of hand. You have to come clean."

For the gasp-inducing shock of both Boris and Mabel, Coraline's reply to the '30s cartoon living wolf was, "Sorry Boris, but _no_. I just didn't have many options to make you stop fighting me and blocking my way back home."

"Even then... You chose to wear clothes exactly _today_?" Boris pointed out. "Which means... Our fates were star-crossed... But ya bet I ain't bested yet! 'cause I, the Cool Boris, never got beaten in a date, and never will! I can keep with ya just as well, because I wear clothing too! And I... wear a unique pair of clothes beneath my regular ones. Ya never know when you'll get a tomato."

He began to spin like a tornado and, once he paused, he had a completely different outfit. A very formal suit, with, for a strange reason, a heart bracelet on one of his ears. "Wrah hah hah! Whaddya think about my style!"

While trying to pick up the answer on her own, giving a look at Dipper as if to sarcastically congratulate him on not changing too much the course of the conversation, Coraline reluctantly said, "It's neat. In a formal way..."

"Wait... A genuine compliment?" Boris said, taken a little bit aback. And yet, he still managed to recover a bit of his cool-headed attitude. "But, ya don't know... I got a neaty little trick on this outfit. And I wanna see ya find it, unless ya find out what the trick is."

It turned out that the trick, as in, the little secret in the outfit... Was right underneath Boris's heart bracelet on the ear. And for some zany reason, it was... "A gift!" Boris explained. "Just for ya."

As Coraline unwrapped it with some curiosity, Dipper and Mabel overlooked it like curious little kids, a effect that was enhanced by their shorter height. "Do ya know what that is?" Boris asked, bending down to Coraline's height as the gift was unwrapped.

"Of course." Coraline dryly pointed out. Boris pointed out with some agreement, " _Sandwich_. That's what'cha thought, right?"

It was what could be called common, with lettuce, tomato slices, cheese, and even a slice of lunch meat. What was a bit worrying, however, was how gray the bread looked. Not overrun by a fungus, just, gray, as if belonging to an old cartoon. "Except ya were a little bit off... That's not an ordinary sandwich, that's a paintiful artwork. Ingredients gathered from secured, thrown bags... And conjoined by me, Boris. Human, I can tell this is the endgame. Ya can't make it go further." He said, his last words punctuated by a sassy, toothy grin.

...And it wasn't like an empty belly was going to be able to protest against it, despite the risk.

Coraline took out a bite of the sandwich. Dipper and Mabel noticed, and even felt a bit in the literal sense, how the taste couldn't be described.

"Ya... really must enjoy my cooking to give that look," Boris concluded by Coralien's crunched-looking expression. "Which means, ya like me... Definitely more than me.

Human, it's clear now. Ya are crazy for me."

Coraline's eye twitched as she watched Boris launch into a monologue.

"Everything ya do and tell... Ye've been trying to cheer me up. Human, I can't deny I want yer happiness too. So, it's time to confess how I really feel. I, Boris... I... Well, this is getting a bit out of hand. Human... Sorry. I just don't think it's swell that way of liking of yours. Romantically."

Coraline didn't feel bad about the news. Dipper was sighing in loud relief. Mabel, however, was a bit boomed with the news.

"I mean, trust me, I tried. And it's been hard to be like this, too! I mean, I just dated ya 'cuz I thought it was the logical reason for a flirt. And it'd evolve into love. But I, the Cool Boris... didn't make it work out as always. I just made ya crazier for me for no reason. I trapped ya... A nice friend. But, I guess I'll still try to make an effort to ya! By being a nice friend and not minding this all. Because you're cool, and it'd hurt to lose ya. So... Don't cry 'cuz I won't snuggle with ya, okay? Like, everyone judges humans with non-humans. And yer gonna find someone as cool as me."

"Right," Coraline promised. Perhaps this Boris guy was going to be a much better friend than she expected.

"And if ya need my help, call this number," Boris said with an easygoing grin while handing out a piece of paper. "Ya can call me as a friend anywhere."

With a smile, Coraline and her ghostly companions would leave the room.


	13. Emeraldaqua - Slendys

It was time for Coraline to continue the exploration/journey back home. And indeed, the next area was not only much more familiar to Dipper and Mabel, judging by their happy smiles, but themed after water. Shades of green and the audibly flowing water made a soothing, gentle atmosphere. On the very next room ahead, a pair of familiar faces would appear.

"Hey! Are you seeking for her too?!" Ruby asked Coraline. Coraline wasn't sure who this _she_ was, but before she could clarify that, the red girl continued talking, in a dreamy tone. "She's the coolest! I wanna be a rockstar just like her..."

_Wait... Didn't someone in Recording Town say that Boris would report trouble to a rockstar lady?_ Coraline thought before Sapphire's words made her lose her focus. "Please don't tell our caretakers we are here."

While loosely agreeing with the vow, Coraline was dragged by Dipper and Mabel towards something resting by one of the little four-point stars. A cyan blue flower.

"That's an Echo Flower! It echoes anything you say." Mabel explained. "Coolio, right?"

The blue-haired girl was, ironically enough, a bit skeptical about the flower's ability, but Dipper's smile towards his sister's words made Coraline decide to take a shot at it. She said "Hello?" at the blue flower, and sure enough, the flower began to gently echo her words, even mimicking to near-perfection her voice. She wondered how the twins learned of that...

As she touched the four-point star, reminding how the rush of water and the green glow of the place filled her with _determination_ , a bigger surprise managed to temporarily eat her curiosity in relation to her ghostly companions. A certain familiar living rubber hose cartoon in a sentry station. "Bendy?!"

"Hey, toots!" Bendy chipperly and casually greeted Coraline. "Never saw a fella with two jobs, right? It's alright! At least this means nearly-unlimited breaks in between! And by the way... I'm going to Slendys! Wanna come?"

"...Sure." Coraline reluctantly decided, in spite of Dipper and Mabel's mixed opinions on the cartoonish demon.

"Well, if ya mind making me stab a few job hours..." Bendy cheekily said, before clasping his hands. "Then follow my shortcut!"

He used his foot to make a circle on the ground, before sinking inside it, making a little, moving ink pool. Coraline reluctantly stepped towards it, while Dipper and Mabel hid behind her. One of Bendy's hands rose from the pool and offered itself towards her. The twins strengthened their grips on Coraline's legs, and the blue-haired girl herself reached out her hand.

The sensation of sinking into something similar to water but thicker lasted only for a few seconds for the trio before they suddenly found themselves right by Bendy's side, and apparently inside Slendys, without even a stain of ink on Coraline's clothes.

"See? Wasn't that scary!" Bendy said, an attempt to reassure the human girl. Then, he turned to the crowd inside the place and shouted enthusiastically, "How's it goin', pals?!"

The crowd inside Slendys, which included the Royal Guards that Coraline evaded earlier, didn't even look fazed by the strange shortcut method of the demon. They casually greeted him in very friendly ways. Then, one of them pointed out, "Bendy, didn't you have your breakfast here a few minutes ago?"

"Nope!" Bendy gleefully denied. "Never remembered having breakfast in the last hours! Might've even been... _3-D_." He punctuated his pun with a wink before turning again towards Coraline, holding up a chair for her. "Here ya go, toots! Ladies first!"

Considering the unnecessary kindness, Coraline took a little glance at the chair to see if anything was there. In fact, there was a small but noticeable sack of ink right in the middle. She gently swiped it away, startling off the ghostly twins. "Quite a smart gal!" Bendy congratulated. "Sometimes no one can tell where the inky bursts are. Anyhow, what's ya order?"

While thinking about what to choose, Coraline, along with the twins, took a little glance at who was probably the owner slash main cook and waiter of the place. A male humanoid with snow-white skin and dressed in a sharp suit... With no face. Kind of unsettling to look at. Even if she didn't want to state it vocally. "Fries..." She chose while trying to avoid direct contact with the humanoid.

"Swell choice there!" Bendy complimented, before turning to the faceless man and talking to him as if he was a very old acquaintance. "Heyo, Slendy! Two pairs of fry boxes, pretty please!"

"Slendy" mysteriously vanished at the door behind the counter. The human girl and her formerly human companions were honestly grateful over not seeing someone so... eerie. Bendy gently tapped Coraline's shoulder once Slendy was out of sight. "So... Whaddya think about my best pal?"

"Boris... He's okay." Coraline answered sincerely. He seemed aloof and uncaring, but he did show her his own way of kindness.

"Of course he's amazing!" Bendy seemed pleased with the answer. "He never gives up on painting even if they usually suck and he washes our clothes! ...Oh, lookie-lookie! Here's our thingies!"

Two boxes of fries were set up in front of Coraline and Bendy by black tendrils coming out of Slendy's back.

"Now..." Bendy began, pulling something out of his hoodie. A little black pot with a jolly roger symbol. "Wanna have some ink?"

With a weird look on her face, Coraline immediately shook her head.

"Kinda knew it. Cultural shock..." Bendy said and muttered with a sad frown before his toothy grin came back in an immediate second. "Works for me!" Then, he chugged the ink between his teeth as if it was soda.

It wasn't like there was more point in arguing and contrasting the logic of the Surface and of the Underground. Coraline just decided to nib on her fries as if nothing too unusual was going on. But Bendy wasn't fully done talking.

"No matter if ya agree with me, ya gotta say Boris is getting more energetic! For example, his hopes of being a Royal Gaurd are comin' back! Like, gosh! Once he went to the house of their head a lil' while ago and made everything to make her let him in. Problem was, it was midnight! So BAM! Door slam! But my pal was determined enough to stay there the entire night-day transition! She saw how tough he could be and gave him lots of training. ...It's still goin', but she gave it to him!"

The cartoonish demon's tone got a bit more serious as he continued.

"But... Now I wanna ask ya a little thing. _Have ya heard about a cyclops triangle doll?_ "

Cold crawled through Coraline's spine, and fear brainwashed Dipper and Mabel's minds. This made the three rethink dearly about how much this apparently goofy, jolly, and impish demon knew about what was going on.

"...Yes," Coraline simply said; perhaps an ally to fend off that crazed demon that tormented her in her journey's beginning could be useful.

"Great, but don't ya mistake that with... The echo flowers." Bendy continued. "They're all around Emeraldaqua, and if one says anything to it, it'll parrot it over and over. What those two have in common to not be mistaken? Well, I got time to explain. A lil' while ago, Boris told me somethin' fascinating. Sometimes, when no one is around... A doll with a triangle shape and a single eye comes and whispers wonders on his ear. Promises and faiths and beginnings. Interesting, right? I dunno, I wanna believe him that it's just someone using an echo flower to prank him... But still, keep an eye out."

"Promised," Coraline spoke, now dead serious. Just now, she noticed the fries vanished from her and Bendy's boxes.

"That was sure a long break!" Bendy said, resuming back to his jolly attitude as if the strange and serious conversation never happened. "Golly, toots, ya sure know how to make a guy run from work! Oh, and before I forget... Can ya pay for me? I got squat on me!"

...Well. That was one way to relieve the tension of the previous topic. Coraline groaned, trying to search through her pockets as Mabel giggled under her breath.

"Toots, I'm kidding!" Bendy said in a partially suave tone, while extending his arm to stop Coraline's hands. Then, with a wink, he turned around and spoke, "Slendy, right on my tab's bullseye!"

Coraline got a bit startled when, finally, Slendy showed his voice with a grunt of annoyance and a reluctant hum of agreement. And she definitely wasn't amused when Bendy suddenly decided to carry her, bridal style, right at Slendys' door. At least, while he spoke, she used the opportunity to silently motion for Dipper and Mabel to hold onto her. "Well, since I got nothin' else to say... Hang on tight, toots.~"

Once again, a trip through the ink, and in the blink of an eye, they were back at Emeraldaqua. Bendy gently set down Coraline and, with a wink, said, "Let's hang out together in the future!"

Coraline actually didn't feel that opposed to the idea, in spite of Bendy's outer shell. Dipper and Mabel, though... they were a bit scared of him.

Anyway, it was time to dive further in Emeraldaqua.


	14. Emeraldaqua - The Rock Cowboy

Coraline wondered how much was going to be behind Emeraldaqua... Or, well, the entire Underground. If everything had a rhyme and reason behind the zany craziness that it all seemed, or if everyone was just crazy by instinct. Thanks to the advice of an echo flower, she found behind the crystal-green waterfall with rocks a room, and within it, a tutu and a pair of ballet shoes, covered in powdery, white dust. Once again, one of the kids from the dream in the Hidden Palace manifested as a memory on her head.

"Are you sure you wanna keep collecting these old things?" Dipper asked, noticing the troubled look on Coraline's face.

Even though the blue-haired girl wasn't sure herself, she could arrange at least one reason. "Yeah... Maybe as memory."

After the waterfall with rocks room, Coraline and her ghostly twin companions reached a place with a very high wall, with floor right above it, and very tall grass ahead. But the girl could see what was going on up there by cracking her neck upward. On one hand, she grinned as she recognized Boris. On the other, the grin didn't last that long as she realized that, while partially shrouded in shadow, Boris's expression was clearly somber. And he was talking with someone.

Although his someone was smaller than Boris, probably only as tall as a mid-to-late teenager, they definitely felt more intimidating than the wolf even if with their back turned. From what could be made out of their shadows, their hair was purplish-blue, and they adorned a cowboy outfit with a short fedora and scarf in black, long-sleeve lavender shirt, black gloves, gray pants, and black-and-lavender boots that had a spiky tip.

"Heeey... Yumi." Boris nervously greeted the figure. "I'm just here with my daily report about the Human that came here and..."

"Did you fight them?" Yumi asked. Her voice was definitely feminine, if not a bit rougher.

"Good gosh golly, ya bet I did. With all my might."

"And did you capture them?"

"Capture them...? I swear I tried, pal, but in the end... I failed."

"Very well then... _I'm gonna get their SOUL by myself_." Yumi decided, in a chilling tone that made Coraline quake under her rain boots, and Dipper and Mabel gasp.

"Wait, Yumi, ya don't need to do that!" Boris said a nervous smile and a stutter on his usually easygoing face. He reluctantly approached her with a few steps. "Ya know..."

But before Boris could give out his reasons, Yumi cut through his words like a burning knife. "It's for our freedom. For everyone's freedom..."

"I... I see..." Boris said, his ears flopping down and his eyes gaining sadness. Thankfully, Coraline managed to catch on a little bit of the lies in Boris's next couple of words. "I'm gonna help ya no matter what."

As Boris left, Coraline immediately realized that this Yumi was going to be the new threat for her in the Underground. And unlike the last two, this one didn't really seem like the kind that would sympathize with her pledge.

"Try to move _very_ slowly..." Mabel whispered in Coraline's ear, the anxiety of the new threat making her forget that she and Dipper were intangible to anyone not named Coraline.

The blue-haired girl eagerly followed the suggestion nonetheless. But soon, the cowboy's attention would be drawn to the suspiciously moving tall branches. She stepped until she was right in the cliff's tip, and while taking a glance, summoned a dark blue guitar on her hand. The fedora was slightly tipped forward, still making most of her facial features unknown. The only things that could be seen were hints of a fair skin slightly dipped in light blue, and the shiny, menacing purplish-blue eyes, which were the last things to fade as she stepped back into the shadows.

Coraline and the ghostly twins took a few more seconds to try and check out if Yumi was there. Only when they were absolutely sure of Coraline's safety chances, that she stepped out of the tall bushes. They weren't expecting some company, though.

"Oh my gosh! You saw how she stared at you?!" Ruby asked, her blood heating up to the skies. "THAT WAS AMAZING!"

"I don't even know what you did to catch her attention. Hah hah..." Sapphire said. In comparison to Ruby, she sounded more neutral, but there was still some passion about the Yumi situation.

"Come on! We gotta watch her destroy the villains!" Ruby said in a leader-like way, bridal carrying Sapphire before running forward.

As they got out of her sight, Coraline could only wonder vocally, "Why every time I progress a bit further here, someone tries to hurt me?" Neither Dipper nor Mabel really knew why. But they both related to her words.

As the four-point star reminded Coraline, she felt like she and her SOUL were going to be rocked to the core... But that despite it all, she was still trying to be _determined_.


	15. Emeraldaqua - The War

Coraline, as much as she wanted to, resolved to not try to question much of the surroundings and logic anymore. She had some better _things_ to focus on: find a way to go back home, to her Mom and Dad. Figure out what was going on in this Underground, and what was the deal with Dipper and Mabel. And... the for-now top priority, try to survive against this cowboy with guitars that Boris called Yumi.

After crossing two rooms by using lily pads that blossomed and grew big enough to be walked into, right at the end of the second room, her cell phone rang.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "Howdy! This is Boris here! How did I find ya number...? Well, I just called every number until I got to ya. Wrah hah hah! But... Whatcha wearing? It's for a pal..."

If this pal was Yumi, then Coraline didn't agree at all.

"She said she saw ya with a dirty yellow raincoat. Pal, are ya really wearing that?"

"...Yeah," Coraline replied, in a tone that made it obvious that she was frustrated Boris couldn't decorate one physical detail of her. For her relief, Boris's last words on the cell phone were pretty reasurring.

"No worries, pal. I'll be sure to try and craft some lie. Thanks, though." _Click_.

The next room, as one of the black tablets with cyan blue letters, would inform Coraline, was the _Wishing Room_. Seeing some echo flowers scattered around, she decided to try and test them out to see if they held more information. First, she went to one on the left of the room's entrance.

"So many years ago, we magic beings would look at the stars in the sky and beg them to bless their dreams. If you had faith, your vision would come to reality. But now, all we have is a roof with fake, sparkling stones..."

In a useless attempt to ignore the weight of Dipper and Mabel's sighs, Coraline decided to poke the echo flower on the very right of the room's entrance, and the two ones close to it.

"But we can't stop believing, even if with fake stones! The kings gotta prove us wrong."

"C'mon, sib! Make a wish!" "I wish me and my sibling will see actual stars one day..."

To be honest, if Coraline wasn't busy trying to go back to her parents, she'd have probably tried to find a way to make them see the night sky. Sure, most of the magical beings she was coming across were initially trying to harm her, but they were just misunderstood in various different ways. One of the ones she met in Emeraldaqua even just wanted her to be clean.

She'd try to avoid the chance of these thoughts dominating her mind by progressing into the next room. Except that it... Would probably end up helping her more.

"Geez, these things are getting older and dustier!" Mabel frustratedly pointed out at the next sequence of tablets. Coraline herself was squinting to get a better look.

"At least the letters survived." Dipper pointed out with an unusually optimistic smile. "I think you can try to read them."

These tablets would turn out to give a... Darker spin on the tale her neighbors told her just a couple of days after she moved to the Pink Palace in Ashland.

" _The War of Humans with Magic Beings._

_Why did humanity try to attack us? After all, there was nothing they could fear on us. Humans are so powerful, it'd take nearly all SOULs from the magic-composed beings, to equal the power of one human SOUL. But humans have a weakness that, ironically, is also its greatest quality. Even after the body perishes, the SOUL can persist outside of it. This allows one magic being to absorb this SOUL. And transform... Into a horrible beast with fantastical power._ "

The last tablet was the opposite of the others: didn't have readable text, but a very visible drawing. A strange, unsettling creature roaring to the skies.

Before Coraline could take a better glance at it, though, she felt the twins tucking her raincoat's sleeves. They both looked sorrowful, troubled enough to invoke sympathy on Coraline, to the point she forgot how infuriating the enigma behind their knowledge of the Underground and the mysterious reason for their unbound sorrow was. She decided that, for now, for their sake, she would stop reading these old tablets.

Except that, on the next room, those worries were shoved to the depths of the back of the trio's mind as a blue, glowing guitar barely took a cut out of Coraline.

" _Run!_ " Dipper and Mabel yelled out.

Coraline didn't even have to think twice. She just ran through the bridge, while the tomboyish cowboy followed her with slow side steps, pausing to summon a trio of guitars at a time to try and get the wily but very scared blue-haired human girl.

Finally, when there seemed to be no escape route in sight, more tall grass appeared. Hesitantly, Coraline chose to crouch and hide in it and hope for the best. Her ears, however, easily caught on a distant, but approaching _clank-clank_. Yumi was coming close.

The intimidating cowboy grasped onto the tall grass and pulled...

A certain reddish girl, with a goofy grin. Not the target she was seeking for. Ruby was gently set down by Yumi before the latter began to walk in the following direction.

"That was way too close..." Coraline whispered to her ghostly twin companions. Dipper and Mabel simply nodded their heads in agreement before the blue-haired girl stepped out of the tall grass. ...And once again, the nigh-inseparable pair she met on Recording Town was there. But it was Sapphire that was in the lead.

"Ruby! That was way too risky... You know it, right?" Sapphire worriedly asked.

"But... Yumi... _Touched me!_ " Ruby exclaimed, emphasizing each bit of her words. Then, she turned to face Coraline, "Man, you should've just stayed a little bit to the left...!"

"Don't worry. Just try to keep track." Sapphire reassured Coraline that her choice of position back a few seconds ago was the right one, before following an overly excited Ruby forward.

Surely, the two magic girls that were attached to each other had a talent to, in spite of being lovably goofy, drain off a lot of Coraline's energy, somewhat contrasting the reason why the ghostly human siblings drained her energy. But, as a four-star point pointed out, along with her hope of a rat managing to eat off cheese stuck inside a magic crystal... She was gonna still hang on, _determined_.


	16. Emeraldaqua - A Faithful Memory

Coraline, and the gradually more mysterious ghostly twins, kept advancing through the Underground's half-aquatic, half-crystalline green area of Emeraldaqua. Already, the familiar chilly friendly face of Boris and the energetic-calm faces of Ruby and Sapphire came in to induce familiarity. And Yumi's, the dangerous mystery. But it seemed like a certain grin would be stamped on the unusually tall, 12-years old girl in a raincoat for a while, since it and its owner appeared once again, side-by-side with an odd telescope.

"Heyo! Just tryna find my way on telescope business!" Bendy gave out his greeting in the usual, chipper tone. "Normally, this lad right here would be like, 50000 of gold to use... But yer a good pal, so ya get a free pass! How does that sound, toots?"

However, the impish demon did take a bit of a notice on Coraline's wily look, trying to grasp what could be hidden behind this apparently ordinary, even if expensive-to-use telescope. Enough that she didn't have to vocalize her disapproval for Bendy to notice its existence. "No worries! Ya free to come back."

After waving to the fun, if not very enigmatic cartoonish demon, Coraline continued her exploration. The room to the right, full of bridges and pleasant green water that seemed to glow if only a little, made her somewhat realize there was beauty behind this illogical place. Even when Boris called her midway to remind her that he just decided to tell the truth to Yumi just to not break both's hearts. And the next tablet she found on the upper right... Reminded her, and Dipper and Mabel, that maybe, the cheerful zaniness was just part of a facade.

" _The power to take their SOULS. That was what humanity feared in us._ "

That lesson had to be hammered on Coraline's head after she crossed three rooms... With some peculiar encounters, with the first and last ones fighting for the cake and the middle happily sitting in the back as the normal one between them.

Coraline would find in the room after these three, a strange statue being showered by slowly-falling droplets. The statue's feet were crumbling, but the girl could still see that the legs were crossed. The head was crestfallen and had features similar to a fox.

"Guys, what is this?" Coraline asked, genuinely interested in that statue.

But the twins were frozen. Their pupils shrank as they observed the statue. No matter how much Coraline called them, they wouldn't respond. Coraline groaned, and just decided to take a little peek at the next room without them. It had a trash can full of umbrellas, and a sign warning to take one. She picked one before returning to the statue room.

_What if I...?_ Coraline thought. It was going to look silly, but down there silly and unusual was the norm.

Before Dipper and Mabel could protest about it, Coraline gently set down the umbrella in between the statue's hands, protecting it from the raindrops. Music began to play... A music box lullaby that mixed sunny and hopeful with traces of sadness.

Wonder filled Coraline's face, while a single phrase, still living and breathing in Dipper and Mabel's memories, echoed through their minds in synchrony.

" _Look, guys! The music comes out of the statue if it's protected from the rain! Pretty cool, right?_ "

Only then, it truly crashed in. How much, despite their current state, they missed _him_...

...

"Guys? Guys, are you okay?" Coraline's worried voice snapped the twins back to reality and made them realize how many tears had fallen from their eyes. Noticing them in more detail, the blue-haired girl decided... "I think we should leave." The ghostly twins agreed with no resistance. They weren't sure of what to think of the statue and the memories it brought, and staying in the same room as it was messing their minds.

The walk Coraline had through the umbrella room to pick up another umbrella and a quarter of the room beyond it was pretty quiet. The incident with the statue left Dipper and Mabel contemplative and quiet, reflexive about something the blue-haired girl couldn't truly catch on to. Her best bet was something they regretted, by mentally pointing out their crestfallen heads.

Whenever it was for the best or worst, the other pair that seemed to connect their paths with hers was in the rainy room.

"Hey! Nice umbrella that you got." Sapphire complimented. "Can we follow?" Ruby asked with a toothy grin.

Coraline, with some minor reluctance, decided to accept the company of the blue and red little ones, if mostly just to not feel so alone after the silent misery the ghostly twins displayed. They traveled through the particularly crystallin, rainy path, while the two non-human girls talked about the Underground's heroine.

"Yumi is... A different heroine." "But she still beats bad guys up, with no fear! If I was a human outlaw, I would've left town before she even met me! Ha ha!"

"Hey," Sapphire called out Coraline's attention.

"Yeah?" Coraline asked, cracking a grin to hide the fact she was trying to guess what could be running in the brunette ghostly twin's minds to no avail.

"You know... One day, we had to help in raising a flower as part of a school project." Sapphire began. "The king, who oddly enough called himself Mr. Blue, thought it'd be nice if we personally saw his flowers. That made me and Ruby ask... How it'd be like if Yumi came by the school?"

"She could beat up all the teachers!" Ruby butted in. "I mean... Nevermind, she wouldn't exactly do that. A real rockstar would never harm bystanders!"

They eventually crossed a bit that took Coraline's breath away. There, it truly felt like there was a gigantic sky, even though it was probably just an area where the roof was higher than usual. Fake stars sprinkled, and in the distance, there was a gigantic castle. Could it be from the Underground's king? Coraline was sure of it, but not sure when she'd be able to step inside it. She'd have to, though, if she wanted to go back home.

The next room, however, had a bucket... And a large cliff that seemed near impossible for one being to climb or jump onto alone.

"Hey... You wanna see Yumi, right?" Sapphire asked Coraline. The human blue-haired girl just nodded her head quietly, partially lying.

"I got an idea! Put the umbrella in that," Ruby pointed to the closeby trash can with multiple umbrellas. "And I and Sapphy will hop you up!"

While putting the umbrella on the trash can, Coraline had to question, "What about you two?" Sapphire simply smiled and stated, "We'll find another way around."

Soon, Coraline snuck Dipper and Mabel who held on to her arms and bid a farewell to Ruby and Sapphire after they helped her climb up the ledge. In the next room, Coraline swore she could hear the echo from the hopeful yet sad music box from the statue, while Dipper and Mabel were absolutely sure of it. They'd come across more tablets about the origin story of the Underground.

" _The humans were so scared of our strength, they swore war on us. They abruptly, cruelly attacked all of us. War wasn't even the most fitting name for the conflict, as even half of them all united were stronger than all of us united. No human SOUL was ever taken, and the fallen magic beings scattered themselves across the wind..._ "

Coraline did remember about the war detail... But, wasn't it a fair battle? That was at least what she interpreted it to be. She just didn't dwell on her thoughts further because she noticed some strange looks on the twin's faces.

Not being distracted by her thoughts somewhat helped her, as while she crossed the high bridges, Yumi appeared in a lower set of bridges, summoning guitars that could impale if one was unlucky enough. She did her best to dodge them, even though some managed to take cuts out of her skin. Unfortunately, she didn't account for the bridge to be a dead-end, neither for Yumi to appear behind her.

"Hey!" Coraline tried to protest, while Dipper and Mabel hid behind her in spite of not being in danger themselves. "Look, can't we just talk this out?! Instead of..."

Perhaps just some nicer wording could've prevented her fate. Or perhaps not. Anyhow, Yumi didn't even flinch with second thoughts as a guitar came flying by, slashing the part of the bridge Coraline stood on. She yelled in terror, the twins followed suit while hugging her, hoping to give her comfort in case she didn't make it.

The fall would bring her to unconsciousness. Nothing but pitch-black darkness. That is until she heard a young, sweet masculine voice.

" _I think the noise came from there... Oh! You two fell down here, right? Are you two okay? I can take you guys to a safer place. ...Huh? Dipper and Mabel? Those are amazing names!_

**_M y n a m e i s-_** "


	17. Emeraldaqua - Quiet Crystals

Coraline slowly came back to consciousness as the voice faded from her mind. She felt petals swarming around her body... Did she come back to the Underground's entrance? Or even more reasonably, was it all a dream?

No. It was just an insanely creepy coincidence. She was still in Emeraldaqua, after... After what exactly? Oh, yeah, after the creepy cowboy girl Yumi sent her down there, by slicing the bridge. As she got up with a jump, she looked around for Dipper and Mabel, and, thankfully, they were still near her. Except that they looked like they bawled out their eyes in tears while she was unconscious.

"It's okay, we are good... We can keep up on moving!" Mabel reassured in a tone that made it obvious she, and by extension, her smiling brother were lying about their emotional condition. Coraline didn't even have much ground for protesting, as she could only have bone-thin guesses of why they knew so much about the Underground.

The blue-haired girl begrudgingly followed her way through the place she found herself in. It was flooded to the brim with water and full of piles of trash, with some brands she even managed to recognize by squinting her eyes. Perhaps, it was the Underground's local garbage dump. It didn't heavily smell as much as she expected it to, though. She and her ghostly twin companions kept crossing more and more trash until they found out another dummy, similar to the one back in the Hidden Palace. The design was a bit different, though: the jester hat's quills went upward, there was a cape, and the major colors were hot red, orange, and yellow shades.

As if Dipper read Coraline's expression to nigh perfection, he suggested gently, "Let's just not hit them."

However, a few steps after the "caped" dummy, the trio heard a gentle, sinking _splash_. And quickly followed by that, a rising _splash_ that was followed by the dummy, now living and with a crazed, sharp-toothed smile right in front of Coraline.

"Nyahaha! Too much of a scaredy-cat to fight me, right?!" The hot-colored dummy spoke, in a crazed voice. "I'm Jackle, a dummy being! A good brother and friend of mine was a dummy being as well... YOU, _YOU BRAT_ , APPEARED! You spooked him out of his vessel, and... Ngggh, the NASTY stuff you said! I'm gonna do NASTY stuff to your SOUL, you bratty little human!"

"Here comes Mad Jackle..." Dipper pointed out to Coraline, in the most _aw geez_ tone of voice.

Cards followed Coraline and her SOUL and tried to blow themselves on her. While the blue-haired girl ran around, Mad Jackle couldn't help but crackle, imagining what he'd do once her SOUL was in his grasp. "Once I get your SOUL and cross the pesky barrier, all the card-seeking fools are gonna be mine. Mine! And MINE! And ya won't be able to escape with tainting Reala's name. No. No! NO!"

He was so caught up with celebrating the revenge and desires he wasn't even close to concluding, that he didn't notice Coraline decided to redirect one of his cards in his direction. He thought it was a fluke, and kept throwing his cards and taunting the girl further until it gradually became glaringly obvious. He decided in his frustration, "Doesn't matter anyway! We can't hurt each other, which means... We are gonna be stuck here! Forever. Forever! FOREVER! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-"

Mad Jackle suddenly was snapped out of his laughing craziness as he felt tears falling down on him. "REALA! Stop crying over me! ...Nevermind, I'm out." He was quick to vanish, much to the relief of Coraline and the ghostly twins.

Coraline's savior clad in snow white, red and black turned to face her. "I came in to say hi... I didn't expect to find you fighting one of my siblings, though. I'm sorry about him." Reala explained. "Perhaps, I'll just go home now. You can follow me and be my guest, or whatever. I'll understand if you are too busy for that, though. See you."

There was one conclusion Mabel could take out of the odd little situation once Reala was out of sight. "That was certainly an encounter!"

The next room was quieter and felt more pacific than the rest of Emeraldaqua. Being reminded of this by the four-point star there filled her with determination. The sign there read, " _North is Nightmare Acres, East is Dreamland, and... Raltz Village exists._ " Coraline did apologize on her mind to Reala, but she had to press on to go back home... And figure out what was going on. For now, among this craziness, Coraline had to figure her way to the King.

On the room to the exact east, Dipper and Mabel couldn't help but recognize a name on the sign. _Knuckles_. Dipper gently tucked Coraline's shoulder and suggested, "Sorry, but... Can you try to check out that store? Perhaps you'll find someone that can help."

Who? Coraline decided that, for the sake of curiosity, she'd give a little peek to find out what Dipper meant. The shopkeeper was similar to Amy, but clearly of a different species. His fur was red, he had a pointy nose, violet-purple eyes didn't have visible ears, and had a curious hat. The similarity was surely odd, but Dipper and Mabel's smiles hopefully indicated that they knew him. Perhaps, even trusted him.

"Hey, are you... Knuckles?" Coraline honestly found the name a bit odd, even when compared to the inky friends.

"Sure, I am." Knuckles replied, noticing Coraline's presence. He crooked a curious eyebrow. "Why are you even here?"

"Not much reason." Coraline sheepishly lied. It was actually spiritual guidance of sorts... That was also hinting to her exactly what to ask. "You have anything to tell about me?"

"I've just been here way too long than expected. At least it makes it easier to enjoy finding out lost artifacts."

Now, with that a bit out of the way, Coraline finally could ask about some of the doubts she had crawling inside her mind. Unfortunately, not the Dipper and Mabel ones yet, since she couldn't detect anyone that mentioned their names.

"So, I'm seeing a weird emblem everywhere I go! What the heck it does even mean?"

"What? You don't know that emblem...? Geez, youngs like you being lost. That is the _Amulet Serosity_ , the emblem of our kingdom. The Kingdom of Magic. Heh, don't worry, King Blue Softie himself knows he's the worst name giver in the kingdom. That emblem actually is older than textbooks, and nobody knows what it truly means... The only thing we are sure of is that the winged circle is something out of this world. Some say it's the angel of a certain prophecy..."

"What?" Coraline just had to interrupt. "A prophecy?"

"Yeah. It goes, an angel that has once seen the Surface is gonna come back and free all of us. Some people took it more cynically, though, calling it an Angel of Death that will free us... In a more harsh way. I don't think it is going to be this way, though. We are gonna come back somehow."

Sure, Dipper and Mabel's face indicated nothing more than boredom. But Coraline was fascinated... And definitely more passionate to know about what was going on. "Who is the King?" She wasn't aware of the somewhat somber look on the twin's faces.

"King Blue Softie? Just the most carefree, nice heroic type... He's eager to meet anyone, and if you keep walking around, you'll probably meet him. Why I keep calling Mr. Blue Blur that? It's a story... That I don't remember, but it's for another time."

Okay. That answer was much more disappointing. Nothing more than some minor details over what Coraline knew previously about the King. Oddly, the ghostly twins were a little worried over the lack of information. One last question remaining... "You know anything about this Yumi?"

"Yumi? She's our local peace-restoring cowboy. Used to make a music duo, but then climbed a harsh mountain to the top of the Royal Guard roles. She was actually here not so long ago, asking about someone like you... I'd have my guard ready."

Uh-oh. Coraline probably had to get a move-on. But before that, she noticed something... A pair of rosy glasses, and a blue book. "Don't worry, I will... But could I get those?"

After parting ways with him, Coraline and the twins continued forward. And it just seemed like the very next room wanted to dump more information about the society deep in Mt. Falls' caves, continuing the story of their sealing.

" _We gave ourselves to humanity's mercy, scared and humiliated. Seven of their most skilled mages sealed us Underground with a magic spell. Anything can come, but nothing can exit. Only beings with a powerful SOUL. There is only one way to break the spell: if a concentrated blast with the strength of seven human SOULs pierces it, it's going to be shattered. But here, no one can come in or out. There's no way a single human is going to fall... Which means, we are doomed._ "

"Hey? Can we confess to you something?" Dipper asked while Coraline traveled through a room by making crystals give her light. "No offense to you, but.... people suck."

"Yeah... They just hurt everything different from them. Because they're different." Mabel added out, sounding unusually serious. "But you seem to be different from them." She added out with a little smile.

Coraline wasn't sure what was worrying her even more now. The hint of what happened to the kids she saw in her dream... Or that statement from the brunette twins. The way they told it so personally made her feel sorry for them. It _had_ to be a confession of their personal experiences judging by their tones...

Before she could think much more about it, though, she realized she didn't have the blessings of the lighting crystals in the next room. Or she grew used to the dark. She had to squint and carefully walk around, before noticing the faint glow of an echo flower. Touching it led to the hearing of a... slightly familiar voice chord. "Behind you." The lights came back, right on time for Yumi to appear behind Coraline.

Yumi took a few seconds to speak and didn't even show her face through her fedora's shadow. "Seven. Seven human SOULs. With their power, finally our king, _King Sonic_... will be powerful."

It was probably one of the smaller, but still stinging shocks of Coraline to learn the apparent child murderer that Amy warned about, and the cool king everyone fondly talked about, were one and the same. She wasn't sure how easy it'd be to go back home anymore.

"With their power, _Sonic_ is gonna destroy the barrier. He will finally bring us to the Surface, and make humanity pay for caging us on the ground. You understand, human? This is your last chance to repent." Yumi spoke, pausing briefly to summon one of her dark blue, magic guitars. "You can give me your SOUL the easy way... Or the hard way."

Unfortunately, the only way Coraline could even have a little chance at living long enough to fulfill her own goals was by choosing the latter option. She gave a defiant glare at the blue-skinned lady and prepared for the worst, shielding her face with her arms. Dipper and Mabel prayed for the best. Yumi charged up-

"YUMI! We wanna help you fight!" Ruby announced, appearing from behind tall grass, pulling Sapphire by the arm and interrupting the battle from happening. While Sapphire gasped and caught her breath, Ruby finally noticed Coraline was there. "Hey! You did it! Yumi is right in front of you, and you get to see her fight live!"

"Ruby? I think... She's attacking her." Sapphire informed.

"Wait..." Ruby squinted her eyes. "You're serious?"

Yumi, noticing the two magic children's presence, took out her weapon and began to drag Ruby the arm. "Hey! You're not gonna tell our caretakers, right?" Ruby tried to protest, while Sapphire followed her. The only thing left about their presence was Ruby's voice, echoing through the echo flower's petals.

It was obvious. Soon enough, there wasn't going to be any way that Coraline could avoid Yumi. But Coraline didn't know any basis of softness around Yumi that could make her back down from a fight, unlike the secretly grieving mother Amy and the dispassionate, lonely artist Boris. She was more worried about the king's goals than anything personal.

But no... She'd have to find a way, even if unusual. Bill's words were still in her mind, but she wouldn't make his stupid prophecy become real.


	18. Emeraldaqua - Guitar of Integrity

For how long Emeraldaqua would stretch itself out? Coraline wasn't sure, and her legs were getting kind of shaky. The reassuring pats of Dipper and Mabel, though, indicated that she was close. She was about to thank them until she noticed... _him_. Before she could even come close to Bill Cipher, though, he teleported away.

"Why was that jerk even here?!" Coraline angrily asked. To make it worse, it didn't seem like the visit extended only to the creepy lurking right behind her back, but by a little message left behind in the echo flower, he formerly stood close by.

"Oh no... Where is that kid?! I swear I just saw them over here! ...AHHH HA HA HA HA HA! WHAT A FANCY LIE. SHE'S GONNA FIND A BETTER KID, YOU'RE JUST SOME OLD DUSTY TOY. AND YOU'LL NEVER SEE HER FACE AGAIN!"

The blue-haired girl walked backward, to avoid listening anymore to Bill's psychotic, high-pitched and shrill crackle.

"Who does that jerk think he is to disrespect Amy like that?!" Mabel said, sharing a good part of Coraline's anger.

"Let's just ignore him and get out of here for now..." Dipper said, very reluctantly choosing to be the two girl's conscience and meditator, as he shared their anger as well. There was only the tablet, about the prophecy of the Angel, and the echo flowers.

The next room was a pretty thin wooden bridge, but at least... There seemed to be a passage in the distance. Right before Coraline could fully cross the bridge, a voice stopped her. "Hey!" Ruby announced. She and Sapphire were carefully walking through the bridge to reach Coraline. "We aren't supposed to be here, but... There's something we gotta ask. A-And... It's not something we ever asked!"

With a hand of comfort on Ruby's shoulder, Sapphire decided to step in and ask in her place. "You're a human... right? I always suspected... And I knew it when Yumi told us, _please stay away from that human_. So, unfortunately, we aren't supposed to be friends... Can you say something that'll make us hate you?"

A frustrated Coraline would've surely jumped at the call. But one that was calmer, and growing more sympathetic to the magic being's situation? "Look... No."

"Wait... I gotta do it then?" Ruby said, huffing her chest a little. "Well, here I- ...go? Actually, I just can't do it. Geez, I'm such a pebble... Sapphy, let's just go home..."

The two contrasting girls sadly began to leave behind their blue friend. Before they could fully cross the bridge, though, Sapphire tripped on her dress and began to hold onto the bridge. "Help, I tripped!" She begged desperately, and no one could blame her due to the depth of the hole below the bridge. "SAPPHIRE! D-Don't worry, I will help you!" Ruby said, trying to help her friend, but to no avail.

And to make everything better and not at all conflicting for Coraline, Yumi appeared.

"Coraline! Run!" Mabel immediately begged. But instead, Coraline decided to run in, despite the obvious danger lurking and getting closer, and help Ruby pull Sapphire back to safety. Reluctantly, the twins lend some of their minimal forces to the blue-haired girl, and surely, Sapphire was safe, sandwiched between Ruby and Yumi.

"Hey," Sapphire said to Yumi. "If you want to hurt mine and Ruby's friend, you have to step on us."

Yumi actually began to back down after listening to the blue girl's threat and outright leave. Ruby sighed in relief and said, "Thanks for helping! I guess this enemyship thing was pretty dumb... Haha..."

"I guess we are better as friends." Sapphire gladly pointed out. "But for now, we must return to our caretakers. They must be agonizingly worried about us."

"See ya later!" Ruby said, now being extra careful to guide Sapphire to the other side of the bridge.

After the situation cooled down, Dipper couldn't help but point out to Coraline, "You know what? You _are_ different from the others." And Mabel gleefully added out, "If you were just the others, you would've watched her fall! But you helped her instead... I'm proud of you!"

Coraline smiled back at the twins. Considering them allies now would be a bit of an underestimation... Now, in her heart, she could admit that they were friends, even if she still was frustrated over how annoyingly mysterious they were. But, as the next room would remind her, there was something else that, for the moment, was more important over dismantling the mystery of the twins.

Figuring out how to spare Yumi, yet survive. And Yumi was right at the top of the cave-like entrance to, probably, the next part of the Underground. Back turned, hair blowing in the wind, and ready to monologue. "Seven... Seven human SOULs and King Sonic will become powerful. Six... is how many SOULs we collected so far."

Coraline's heart ached as she remembered the kids from the Hidden Palace's dream.

"Understand? With your last, seventh SOUL, this world will change forever. First, however, as per honor of those who came this far, I will tell you our people's tragic story. It all began, once upon a time..."

Yumi interrupted herself. And a complete spin on her outward personality began. "Y'know what? SCREW IT! I DON'T NEED TO TELL THAT STORY FOR SOMEONE WHO'S ABOUT TO PERISH! _HIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!_ "

She took out her fedora and tossed it down. Now, the rest of her unclear features were made out; she had fangs and spike-shaped eyelashes. Her blue eyes sparkled, and soon enough the twins were gasping in awe, while Coraline struggled to not laugh.

"You... You stand in front of everyone's faiths and passions!" Yumi pointed an accusatory finger at Coraline. "Y'know, Ami's films made me think humanity was amazing, with their stealthy ninjas and insane vehicles... But you? Just a freakin' coward! Hiding behind those kids so you couldn't face me! And not to mention, your goody-two-shoes heroic act... Pfft, real funny. Hugging strangers is sure a smart idea... NOT! It'd be better if you were dead! Because you existing is a total crime! It's the only remaining barrier between us and our freedom!"

It was obvious she was trying to grasp reasons to fight Coraline, beyond the SOUL deal.

"I can feel it, the hearts of everyone here united... Everyone was ready for this very day! But don't think we are scared. We can never lose if we are united. Now, it's time to put this to rest! Step forward when you're ready for it. Hehehehehe!"

The wind blew around. The echoes of an electric guitar echoed in the air... and Coraline walked forward, not so steady as she hoped, but _determined_ nonetheless.

"That is it... Enough with you running around!" Yumi said as she summoned one of her guitars and came down. " _Here I come! Let's ROCK!_ "

Yumi summoned another blue guitar. Instead of throwing it, however, she tossed it to Coraline's feet. The human girl hesitated a bit before picking the guitar, and it felt much lighter than she expected. "Now that you're _blue_ , you _CAN'T_ escape!" Yumi gleefully warned. "Unless you _dodge danger with a straight face_ , you're not gonna live another second!"

Surely, waves of magic guitars were coming in Coraline's direction. Thinking that the guitar was the same as the sword provided by the yellow-tainted SOUL, she tried to block them out... Dipper and Mabel could only grunt in discomfort as they observed their friend being slammed violently by the guitars.

"Yeah, exactly what I meant..." Yumi's voice oozed with sarcasm. "Except I meant, jump with the guitar!"

But, how? Coraline took a snap guess, bashing the guitar to the ground once the next wave of guitars came along. It didn't break but instead threw her upward. She screamed as she came face-to-face with the ground, and the only reason she didn't protest much as the twins helped her get back up, was because she reminded herself of the guitars ramming onto her.

"Not a bad try... But try this!" Yumi taunted, sending a slightly more elaborate pattern of guitars for Coraline to avoid. This one was less of a disaster than before, but landing on her feet after an intense, magic-aided jump still hurt her feet and made her have to take a recovery break for a few seconds. "We dreamed of seeing the real world, and finally... our visions are one step away from reality! And don't you dare think you'll be able to escape with it!"

...One could consider her word of choices extremely poor, as they were the last ones she said before transforming Coraline's SOUL back to normal. As soon as the window of opportunity popped in front of Coraline, she took a daring leap and ran past Yumi as fast as she could. She also used Yumi's temporary shock at the situation to gain a few more steps ahead.

"HEY!" Yumi finally shouted, with a mouth wide enough for her fangs to appear, once the realization of what the kid came to her. She immediately joined the cat and mouse game and began to run after Coraline.

Suddenly, the headstart that Coraline bought seemed nearly meaningless, as Yumi began to approach her rapidly. She didn't give up, though, and ran as far as she could, as her life now did depend on it. Then, her cell phone rang. Yumi suddenly stopped chasing her, as if on cue to let her answer the phone call. With the probably few seconds Coraline had, she decided to catch a little glimpse at the neon sign on top of her while she answered the call. It seemed to read _Welcome to Dreamland!_ in a violet purple color.

_Ring, ring! Click._ "Hey, pal... How's it going? I was just thinkin' that... Me, ya, and Yumi should do a lil' hangout Perhaps you two will turn out to be great pals. We can meet back at her home if ya want... See ya!" _Click_.

Ironic, given the situation at hand. And Coraline had to be reminded of it by Yumi pulling her back by the arm while shouting, "No running off this time!"

Yumi's words were completely ignored. Coraline was trapped once again in a blue SOUL mode and had to avoid guitars by propelling herself with one of them, but as soon as her SOUL came back to normal, she was off, full sprint again. And once again.

And Dipper and Mabel were both positively impressed with Yumi's perseverance. "She's amazing!" "She's like the hero that always ROCKS!"

Coraline was a bit too busy with the chase to at least scold the twins.

Soon, though, she reached what seemed to be Dreamland. The warm, grassy floor and the mysterious blue river below contrasted the mystic, purple and sparkly walls. While the rest of the Underground could be excused as a dream, this part surely felt, more... like a genuine dream in comparison to others. Or it was just Coraline getting drowsy due to being tired? Hopefully not, because at least she had two witnesses for that.

First, Bendy. He was, once again, in the very entrance room of a new area in the Underground, and inside a snowing sentry station. This time, however, he was asleep in a pretty adorable position. Yumi getting furious at the cartoonish demon's nap time did buy time for the human girl to, once again, get ahead of her. Then, Yumi herself, as when she nearly crossed the other side of the bridge, she began to feel tired.

"Gosh... so... tired..." Yumi groaned. "But... I can't ever give up..."

But soon, she gave in anyway and succumbed to a nap. A nap that could've become a long sleep.

Coraline's first string of thoughts was to take off the chance that Yumi was unconscious and run away. But, the gradually growing sympathy she was developing, plus the twin's sorrowful faces as they observed the fallen hero, was weighting her down on the spot, making her seek out something to wake her up.

Eventually, in the same room, she found out a pretty big bowl of sparkling, non-edible confetti. She picked a handful of them and sprinkled them over Yumi's head. The cowboy woke up in a startle and, noticing her savior was the human she was trying to butcher the SOUL out of in the first place, she turned around and began to awkwardly leave on her own. Who knew that to spare a restless justice bringer, all one had to do was give them an intense chase and sprinkle confetti over them?

"I hope we can see her again!" Mabel joyfully exclaimed.

Coraline wasn't sure if she hoped for that, or not. After all, bad blood was going to be involved in a reunion.

Perhaps now, even though she was possibly close to going back home, she could just take a break from this reality thing for a while and dive a bit deeper into dreams.


	19. Dreamland - Ami NiGHTS

Coraline and her ghostly twin friends would continue diving further into Dreamland. A laboratory rose from the dreamy fog, and seeing such a strangely technological thing in a dreamy place like this, reminded Coraline to shake off the seeping feeling of being trapped inside a dream... and stay _determined_. She'd head there, figuring that there weren't many other options besides two guards that were under Yumi's orders to block off the elevators, and a path that branched downwards.

The laboratory's door opened as soon as Coraline approached, and... The inside of the laboratory was dark. Not as dark as Emeraldaqua's illuminating crystals bit, but dark enough that anything close to the walls was impossible to decipher. Except for a giant control panel with a monitor, showing the exact position on Coraline's back...

"That's... creepy," Coraline commented, not so amused. "Whoever did this as a joke failed in making this funny."

As she said that, she didn't actually expect to meet the one who made this "joke" so soon. She heard the _whoosh_ of an automatic door, and footsteps and the lights finally turned on.

The one responsible for the footsteps walked towards Coraline before finally noticing her presence. She was similar to Yumi height and appearance-wise, but with a rounded head, a long hot pink hair held in a ponytail, and odango's, pinkish-peach skin, hot pink eyes, and a scientist coat that clashed with the golden yellow shirt and fancy white boots she wore. The newcomer gasped in surprise with a gigantic grin as she noticed Coraline.

"Ohmygosh it's you!" She said, in a definitely higher voice than Yumi's voice. "I can't believe you got here right now! I don't believe I'm prepared for a big encounter like this but, whatever! Hiya! The name's Dr. Ami, Sonic's royal scientist!"

Coraline wasn't really sure of how to reply to all of this enthusiasm, so all she could do was give a wave and a halfhearted smile. And muse over how strangely similar the names of Sonic's apparently royal scientist and the Hidden Palace's Caretaker were, even if pronounced differently.

Noticing Coraline's unease, Ami was quick to announce, "No need to worry, though! I'm not a villain! I'm just a big fan of yours; I saw you through my console ever since you stepped out of the Hidden Palace!"

"Wait, what?!" Coraline and her ghostly companions exclaimed in shock. At least, knowing this so much later on the journey of the blue-haired girl spared them from a lot of paranoia.

"I saw your battles, the friends you made... So much! I was supposed to stop you, but gosh! I became your fan just by watching you through a screen! So, you can consider me one of your allies!" Ami held her hands at her chest to make her point clearer. "I'm gonna guide you with everything I know from Dreamland! I know a perfect path to Sonic's castle, with no trouble!"

Someone who actually knew a straight path to the king's castle? That actually seemed just a little bit too good to be true... and Ami's face was giving that truth out. Considering all the previous parts of the Underground had one being halting her path for their goals, Coraline didn't display much enthusiasm while waiting to find out who would be the roadblock this time. Which was strangely amusing for Dipper and Mabel.

"Actually... There's just _one_ tiny little problem! A good while ago, to replace the previous talents of the Underground, I made a robot called NiGHTS. I just wanted her to be an entertainment robot, like a movie or TV star! But then I thought, what if I made her more useful? Like... Just some small little adjustments! Like... _weapons to combat a human_? But of course, I saw you coming and decided that I had to remove those features! Except that, I did a little twitchy mistake while on that... _And_ , now she might be a little bit lunatic with the idea of seeking a human?"

Ami nervously laughed as she finished her confession. "No worries! We might not stumble into her!"

Spoke too soon. Soon enough, seismical shaking began to take over the laboratory. Realizing exactly what was happening, Ami muttered... "Uh-oh."

The lights spontaneously turned off again. Now, nothing could even be seen. "Hey!" Coraline was the first to protest.

"Who turned the lights off?" Dipper more tried to guess over protest.

"Are we in some kinda show?" Mabel curiously asked.

As if to answer right on cue for Ami's worried muttering, a new voice, androgynous and young enough, appeared. "UH-YEAH! Welcome, starlights... _To tonight's QUIZ SHOW!_ "

A spotlight appeared on the figure responsible for the light failure, and for a hole on the laboratory's wall. It was a robot with a purple pentagon body, propelled in the air by a cyan-blue flame, with a flashing pixelated screen with the N letter. A microphone was held by a hand close to the screen, while the other was positioned on the "hip" in a very sassy way. A "GAME SHOW" logo was held on the air, along with flashing, rainbow-colored disco balls. "I can tell this one is gonna be a FANTASTIC flight! Everyone, let's give claps to the wonderful contestant we got!"

The robot, possibly NiGHTS, clapped gleefully while her screen flashed differing colors. Other claps and joyful roars joined in from a mysterious audience, and confetti fell all over Coraline. The girl was feeling disoriented with all of this; meanwhile, Dipper was almost ready to throw up, and Mabel was joining on the cheering, even if she couldn't be seen by anyone but her brother and her protege.

"You possibly never played this, Visitor..." NiGHTS turned her attention to Coraline. "Don't worry, it's simple enough! It's just a little rule you have to follow... Answer everything correctly, or _your nap time might not be so pleasant_. But no worries; you seem to be the smart kid, you seem up to it!"

Although Coraline imposed her seriously snarky face as she nodded her head to that remark, the twins could feel the inner layer of fear right beneath that facade. Which made them pretty worried for her safety.

"First off, something really easy!" NiGHTS said, in a hearty tone that suggested that, perhaps, she wasn't aware of the deadly game she was putting on the human girl. "What is the prize to the correct answer? Money, cars, a good time, or perhaps even more questions?"

"Oh gosh, what could it be?" Mabel gasped, her joy at witnessing a show live kind of overtaking her worry for Coraline's life. At least, Dipper swooped in to make the worry obvious, "It's gotta be a good time... That's the closest thing to mercy! And promising a not-pleasant nap time implies she might do bad things if she-"

"More questions." Coraline guessed, going by a D letter signal Ami gave right from behind NiGHTS' back.

And for Dipper's bafflement and Mabel's relief... "Correct! Seems you really got the smarts, Visitor!" NiGHTS cheerfully clapped, indicating that Coraline just got it. "And here's the prize! What's the King's actual name? Lord Blue Softie, Cooler Personification of Justice, King Sonic the Hedgehog, or Dr. Tonic?"

At least, one question that didn't hurt so much to think. Coraline even gave a little sassy little smile as she replied, "It's King Sonic the Hedgehog."

"What a wily little devil you are!" NiGHTS gladly complimented. "But, you gotta know about me before we can become true friends! What is the recipe for a robot? Faiths and Passions, Metal and Dreams, Nightmares and Snails, or Everything and Nice?"

Metal and Dreams seemed a bit too obvious, but Coraline decided to take a little stab at it after noticing Ami making a B motion with her fingers.

"Way to go, friend! And I got a pretty easy question for you next!" NiGHTS said... Immediately before this, "Two trains are crossing simultaneously to two stations. 252.5 miles is how much the trains are apart, 124.7mph is how fast Train A is going to Train B, and 253.5mph for the vice-versa... How long it will go until both trains pass each other, considering it's been eight minutes since they departed? 31, 16, 32.049 OR 32.058 minutes?"

...What?

Now the panic was real. Coraline's facade was cracking, Mabel was pulling her hair, even Ami wasn't sure if D was the right answer. Dipper, meanwhile, was trying to calculate the possible outcome as fast as come. He tried to quickly shout, "I think it's 3-"

But by then, time ran out and, with a disappointed gasp, NiGHTS raised a finger. "Oh no! _It! Is! **WRONG!**_ " She announced, as a purple thunderbolt came out of her pointer finger's tip and jolted Coraline, much for the twin's horror. The blue-haired girl took a while to get in a two-feet stance, for Ami's worry. "Don't worry, the show is not over yet! How many mouses are running around?"

"What do you-" Coraline was about to question, but then, numerous white mouses began to scatter about from NiGHTS' back and run around the girl. "...Oh." She realized, trying her best to hold back a bit of disgust.

"Awwww, can't we keep any of them?" Mabel asked, finding the running critters adorable.

"Nnno. Against the rules." Dipper explained in a deadpan tone, motioning to a rule list right below the game show sign, while Coraline counted the mouses, reaching the counter of 13.

"Seems we got one lucky Visitor here!" NiGHTS complimented, before gleefully pulling out the half of a billboard. "Now, a little memory jolt! Who is this one? Moto Bug, Buzz Bomber, Crabmeat, or moi, NiGHTS?"

At a first glance, it was half of a Moto Bug's frontal view. But on the other... It suspiciously looked like a half-folded shirt, which tipped to Coraline that perhaps, it was a trick. "It's you." She guessed, eyes sneakily squinted. The suspicion was confirmed when, after all, the shirt was pulled out of the billboard and briefly put on NiGHTS' invincible metallic body.

"Aw, stop, you're making me blush!" NiGHTS giggled. "But this one is a little bit complicated... Would you smooch a dream jester?"

To the bafflement of Coraline and Dipper, all the answers possible were Heck Yeah. But Mabel was having a field trip day with that... "Heck yeah! Heck yeah! Ya gotta answer Heck yeah!"

"...Heck yeah." Coraline reluctantly replied, technically choosing all options. Even Ami was a bit worried about the lack of choice that the blue-haired girl had.

"Amazing answer! Simply amazing!" Somehow, NiGHTS' joy kept getting bigger with the correct answers. "I'm gonna reward you with a simple question... How many letters are on my name?"

Coraline's worries about the quiz show were waving, and it just had to be obvious by her bored tone of voice. "Six..."

"Of course you got this!" NiGHTS complimented, before gaining a more sly tone. "But this one is not gonna be so easy for you... In the rhythm game Dance Card Space Dance, what is the goal of the main protagonist, Dance Card?"

"HEY! HEY! I KNOW THIS ONE!" Ami yelled joyfully, unwittingly saving Coraline from a whopping embarrassment at her own cost. "AVENGE HER SISTER! SHE GOES INTO THE MULTI-UNIVERSAL EPIC-AND-COSMIC SCALE CARD GAME SINCE CHAPTER ONE BECAUSE THAT IS HER GOAL! IT'S SUPER AMAZING BECAUSE IT'S A SUBVERSION OF ALL KNOWN girl character roles and..."

Ami paused right after noticing she spoke too much.

NiGHTS playfully waved her finger. "Tsk, tsk. Poor Ami, Poor Ami... You're not making this any less fun for the Visitor, right? You can't cheat in a fun game!" It wasn't like Ami's obvious nervous face, coupled with the speedy negative head shakes, would solve anything. It was crystal-clear by this point. "Don't worry, I'm gonna make it up to you with a question you'll be sure to answer!" NiGHTS turned her attention to Coraline. "Who is Dr. Ami's favorite person?"

"Oh! Oh! What if it's Yumi?" Mabel suggested with a gleefully silly and sly smile.

"Are you that sure?" Coraline questioned with a furrowed eyebrow. Dipper was about to reprehend the silliness of his sister... Until he remembered, Yumi did mention Ami's name. "She might be onto something." He informed Coraline.

Coraline took a glance at the options... Either Yumi, Sonic, the Visitor, or Unknown. And then, at Ami's, silently pleading for her to not make an embarrassing choice by shaking her arms with a comically worried face. With an apologetic frown and a deep breath, the girl said, "It's Yumi."

For her, her heart did ache and tear itself apart when Ami, flustered, hid her face behind her hands.

"See, Ami? Even the Visitor knows about this, and they never met you!" NiGHTS innocently poked fun at Ami before turning back to explain. "Yes, the two of them were rockstars before my rise to fame! It all began when they met and strapped their guitars together. They dropped out of that life when the King gave different proposals for each of them, but it'll never mean they won't be apart! Chances of them not being friends? Literal zero." She clasped her hands before continuing, "Seems like, with Dr. Ami's help, this lost all meaning of fun! But it doesn't mean it's over... This is just the pilot, after all! Next time, more adventures, more bonding, more dream shattering! See you all soon!"

And with the last speech, NiGHTS took off into the ceiling... Making yet another hole, while doing dramatic, open palm gestures with her hands. Coraline, Dipper, Mabel, and Ami watched in stunned silence as the chunks from the celling's hole fell onto the ground and every indication of a show happening disappeared.

"That was kinda curious!" Ami shrugged off the whole situation with a cheerful smile. "Except that last question... It was off-script, you know? But hey, can I trade you my phone number? If you need any help, you could get it and-" She gasped as Coraline extended out her phone. "Where did you find that? It's SO prehistoric! It can't even text! Just give me a second..."

"Hey!" Coraline protested with some frustration, as the phone was basically a remaining memento from her time with Rose. Thankfully, when it was returned to her, nothing was physically changed...

"I gave it some upgrades!" Ami gleefully explained. "Now it can text, store items, has a key chain, and even a free pass for the best social network in the Underground! This means that we are official friends! Hahahaha... Hahaha... Hah... ...I have to use the bathroom!" She excused herself, running to the automated door with a symbol similar to her head right by the side.

...

"Well," Mabel cheerfully began her own conclusion about the whole situation. "Dreamland is gonna be one heck of a ride!"


	20. Dreamland - Another Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Released during Arty's 18th year birthday, February 17th, 2021.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and comments! Enjoy!

Before going out of Ami's laboratory, Coraline and her twin companions decided to check around it, now that it had the lights on. Out of the things she found, was a half-full bag of strange food, a fridge stuffed full of soda cans, and packages of instant noodles (she reluctantly took one of the latter), a cheap figurine of a knight with cards on her belt, a computer, and notes written in chicken scratch.

Upstairs, the first thing Coraline saw was a row of dusty bookshelves, with one among them being composed of CDs. Although all of them were labeled Human History, the blue-haired girl realized after checking the covers... "Hey, it's just a bunch of cartoons and comic books!"

"That doesn't seem to be very veridic if you ask me." Dipper pointed out, while Mabel nodded in agreement... in spite of finding some of the boys in the covers handsome.

There was a machine spilling out a strange liquid in a bucket to the point of overflowing, a dusty work table, a wardrobe with multiple outfits, half of them aged and dusty, unopened letters from many people, a box... that apparently was an extremely fold up bed, and right at the end, a poster of NiGHTS, for a show/movie called _Dream Delight_. There was a quote on the poster's flap, written in a fancy, white font that contrasted the dominant purples, pinks, and yellows from the rest of the poster.

" _Thank you so much. Now, my dreams aren't far away._ "

Well, it was time to go. With a turn towards the lab's right door and leaving through it, the journey through Dreamland began.

...Except that soon, a notification would come on her updated cell phone.

" _ **AMI updated status!**_

 _i forgot to watch yumi fighting the human!!! she's invincible tho, so maybe I'll ask this later... for now, I'll call on the human and guide them in a min! ^v^_ "

After cringing a bit at the writing, Coraline proceeded ahead.

The place was a strange balance between technology and the serene, pacific weirdness of a good dream. Most of the time, Coraline would find herself stepping on soft, blanket-like grass, but also jump in steam vents to avoid falling down the strange liquid below. Mabel was quick to point out, "Weird! This place seems a bit more tech-savvy than what I remember!"

And, thanks to the upgrade on the cell phone, Coraline got nearly non-stop notifications of Ami talking about calling her. Or them. She wondered why the beings couldn't detect that she was female at all... and how at the very end of the steam room, someone calling her on the cell phone hung up before she could even have the chance to reply. After passing through a room and storing an old, burnt fry pan, she found out mini, white robots with a single eye, and beams coming out of them, either blue or orange. As if right on cue...

_Ring, ring! Click._ "Hello! Do you see the blue lasers? ...I meant, this is Ami here! Hello! The blue lasers are harmless if you don't move, and the orange ones you gotta move through and... Yeah! Just gotta move through those! Buh-bye!" Click.

The lasers were easy enough to cross and, to Coraline's surprise, there was a switch at the end that turned all of them off with ease. This tipped some suspicious vibes to Dipper, but he kept himself quiet. Mabel was enjoying the ride and Ami's personality, while Coraline tried her darn best to be patient through the whole thing, jumping through steams and solving puzzles to open a door for more steam jumps through the bizarre, living dreamland.

That's in... _Until_...

"Hey... Coraline?" Mabel gently tucked the tall 12-years old girl's raincoat. "Is it just me or is it a bit too dark?"

"Tell me about it." Coraline agreed, but her cell phone began to vibrate before Dipper could join in.

_Ring, ring! Click._ "It's kinda jet dark in there, right? Don't worry, I just gotta hack this baby up to make all the lights go back! I mean, what's the worse that- ...Uh oh."

_Why the uh oh?_ Coraline thought, subconsciously sharing the thought with Dipper and Mabel. Sure, it was weird someone had left a kitchen show area with a fake window to a pretty night sky, but what it could have of dangerous?

" _UHHH YEAH!_ "

Oh. It was NiGHTS, descending down on the sky with a chief's top hat awkwardly inserted over her head. Still with the microphone in hand, and dangerously but innocently enthusiastic as when Coraline first saw her. "Welcome, dreamers, to the number one cooking show of the Underground! _Cooking From Your Literal Dreams!_ Get the ovens ready, because we are about to learn how to make a unique dish tonight! We are gonna bake... A cake! And my partner here will help with the ingredients. Everyone, let's give claps to the wonderful partner we got!"

As the mysterious crowd gave their claps to Coraline, she turned around and began to sassily reply, "Okay so... What I need? And are you a cook like Dad?"

Ignoring part of the question, NiGHTS replied, "We are gonna need sugar, milk, and eggs! Starlight visitor, get into it!"

The ingredients were easier to gather than expected because they all were conveniently in the background of the scene. Still, NiGHTS expressed almost exaggerated joy when Coraline found them all and placed them on the front counter. "You did so well, visitor! We got every single thing necessary for the cake! Sugar, milk, eggs... Oh no! What a terrible moment! I just forgot about something... The ingredient to make it extra special! _A human SOUL!_ "

The purple robot laid one of her hands back on her "forehead" and let out a melodramatic wallow. While she was worried for her SOUL's safety, Coraline was not amused. Dipper shared the sentiment, and Mabel... she could see both side's points. Then... _Ring, ring!_

"Hey, whatcha doing?" NiGHTS immediately swung off of her sadness flunk. "I'm busy with like, personal stuff now!"

"Wait, I got an idea!" Ami began to speak from the phone, loud enough so that NiGHTS could listen. "You don't need the SOUL! What if you get a, I mean, what if you use... What if you use something that is like a SOUL but not an actual SOUL?"

"As in, an ingredient that doesn't come from humans?" NiGHTS innocently guessed. "Why?"

"There could be vegans watching!" Ami explained, flaunting confidence that hid how truly awkward she was deep down.

"Oh my gosh Ami, I even forgot to include them! Thank you for the reminder, and pardon everyone that is a vegan watching!" NiGHTS said in a more gentle, sincere tone. "Don't worry, you did your hard work well, starlight partner! I'm just gonna use this convenient NiGHTS-BRAND can of human-soul substitute right here!"

As the blue-haired kid and her near-invisible companions showed a bit of disgust, NiGHTS picked up a can and threw it very up high. "Whoopsie daisy! If it falls down, the can's gonna be lost! _And I sure don't wanna put an end to my cooking partner just for one silly recipe!_ " She said in a tone that sounded sincere, but that still sounded obliviously dangerous. And curiously enough, just when Coraline needed help...

_Ring, ring! Click._ "Don't worry, I-I think I got a plan! Remember when I upgraded your phone? Internet connection wasn't the only feature! Press a button that says Jetpack in it! It's gonna have enough fuel to give you time to get the can!"

Surely, when the button was found and pressed, the phone was transformed into a jetpack that stuck to Coraline's back and immediately began to lift her up, leaving her twin companions on the ground. It could sound ridiculous but she was pouring out her will and heart onto trying to get the can safely back on the ground without making it explode and stick NiGHTS back into the original plan. Perhaps, it was just simply a desire to survive... But anyhow, after a bit of a struggle, she did it.

"Oh my gosh! May the King bless you and Ami for literally saving the show!" NiGHTS spoke as Coraline descended down, set the can on the counter, and watched as the jetpack turned back into the normal, old-looking cell phone. "I couldn't even imagine what I'd do if she wasn't around! But... Unfortunately, I guess I baked the cake a little bit ahead of time before all this mess happened." She confessed.

"What?!" Coraline frustratedly screamed, before being handed a slice of the cake. It was surprisingly fresh despite the purple robot's words. She begrudgingly decided to accept it, watching as the robot bid her a strange farewell. "See you in another dream!"

And then,

_Ring, ring! Click._ "Oh my gosh! We did it, together! Good job everyone! Keep on moving ahead!" _Click._

"Well... At least you got a refreshing show cake. Cheap, but better than nothing." Dipper tried to drag some light into Coraline's stress.


	21. Dreamland - The Guards

Lots of things happened through her travels in Dreamland, and Coraline was probably just a little bit close to her goal of personally meeting the King and going back home. NiGHTS, however, was halting her efforts, while Ami was really trying to put the effort line back on track, and succeeding mostly, but not without being an awkwardly cheerful mess about it.

Not to mention, questions kept appearing just as frequently as fresh answers. One doubt was pretty much clear on her mind now...

Where Dipper and Mabel would go once everything was over? She'd have to live with them forever, or...?

Although curiosity was one of her main emotions through this entire journey, Coraline urged herself to push that one worrying doubt to the back of her mind. Especially as her twin companions pointed out something. A very technological building, swimming in the purple liquid covering most of Dreamland. The wonder of what she'd find there filled her with _determination_.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "You see that building right there? Let's just say, it's the HEART of all kinds of energy in the Underground! Heaty energy becomes magic energy and... Well, that's part of the path we'll go to! The reason why is, the HEART has an elevator that could take one directly to Sonic's castle! Which means you'll be coming home in no time!" _Click_.

A place with an elevator that could take her faster on the way home? Sounded pleasantly convenient, but... "You guys ever heard about that HEART?" She asked the twins.

The fact none of them gave precise answers planted some seeds of worry on the blue-haired girl's heart. Mabel simply stated, "Sometimes but, ya know... Not enough." And Dipper only gave the slightly more advanced, "A scientist wanted to build it long ago. I don't know who it is but, doesn't look like Ami."

Soon, a little ahead, Coraline would face off with an elevator that not only took her higher but also to either left or right rooms. She'd begin to test all possibilities to see if any would be the path she'd be able to take to continue. With one of these, she'd see a familiar grinning face, behind another sentry station still covered in snow.

"Hey Bendy!" Coraline greeted the cartoonish demon.

"Hey, toots!" Bendy greeted the blue-haired girl with a wink. "How's it goin'? How you'd like a hot dog?"

"You know what? I wouldn't really mind one." Coraline decided, smiling as she handed Bendy a bit of her gold. Totally oblivious to the contempt looks of the twins towards the '30s cartoon demon.

"Aww, pal! Thanks! Here's your 'dog!" Bendy said with a black blush on his cheeks, before proceeding to explain the "pun." "Get it? 'dog? It's short for a hot dog! Hope ya don't want much, ya know. Gotta save the bucks for college and when you meet a swordsman."

After the weird forewarning, Coraline continued her journey through the Dreamland. On the way, she found out a trio of items. An apron, an old and battered warrior from kitchen wars, and a hilt with a katana's tip gently resting over the apron. She picked them before going ahead, and Ami gave her aid on the next puzzles... Actually, only one of them. Because...

_Ring, ring! Click._ "H-Heyo! I'm gonna have to use the bathroom for a while. Don't worry, I'm sure you can handle the puzzle ahead!" _Click_.

Luckily, it was a simple stream puzzle that was easy to navigate through. Coraline, though, couldn't help but chuckle quite a lot once, along with the company of a cheese trapped in a microwave and a mouse hole, Ami giving a review to a bad sequel of _Dance Card Space Dance_. Neither of the twins could understand a reason for the humor, but they didn't feel like judging. It was a bad opinion on their eyes, anyway.

Anyhow, she continued her way through-

"Hey! Stop right there!" A masculine, deep voice with a slight Spanish accent rose from Coraline's back.

She turned around to find the source of the voice. It was the two, small, circle-shaped knights blocking one of the paths right back at the beginning of Dreamland. One blue and serious, the other pink and apparently childish, but still loyal. "We received news about a human with blue hair, and a yellow raincoat, wandering around Dreamland. I know it is terrifying, but don't worry, we'll bring you somewhere safe."

Even though the prospect of being safe from having her SOUL snatched was pleasing, she didn't like one bit when the blue knight held a small, gloved but strong hand on her wrist and began to pull her away. Dipper and Mabel united efforts to try and keep her in place, with actually worked... And made the blue knight apply more pressure on the wrist, under the assumption that this was one fellow magic being with more weight than usual.

"Poyo!" The pink knight said in an adorably girly boy voice, sparing Coraline from a bruised imprint on her wrist. "Yellow raincoat!" He pointed to Coraline's outfit.

"Wait... Seriously?" The blue knight gasped, before taking a good second look at the girl he thought he was saving. "Young one, I am surprised you noticed it before me. Now, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to end your life."

As the two knights drew their swords, one of gold and one of silver, Coraline just took a deep breath. "Welp, here we go." She snarked off to avoid thinking of her worry.

Dipper couldn't help but chuckle a bit, only for Mabel's confusion, as Coraline was busy dodging stars and mini tornados. He saw a father and son figure, the two knights, staring at the abyss of an unstoppable feeling. He didn't want for them to wish for their own oblivion, because their bond would end in hell at another time. Over this fact, he couldn't stop laughing.

His sister was the one that had to snap him back into logic and reality again. "Hey! Bro-bro! Any idea of what we can do?!"

Dipper's anxious panic began to creep back in once his laughter died off and had to enter a late second window of opportunity once Coraline stopped dodging, so he could whisper a plan into her ear. "Are you sure about it?" Coraline asked with a pair of furrowed, curious eyebrows. Dipper gave a head nod and added, "I'm almost sure."

With some reluctance, Coraline dashed through and began to try and clean the pink knight's armory. Stars kept appearing, but now there were some green ones among them. She was quick to touch around five of these, a soothing feeling dominating her SOUL. The pink knight was a bit tired at having to wear the heavy, hot-red armory. So, besides the mask and silver sword, they removed their articles of clothing, revealing red feet.

That was when the hardest part of the plan came off. The blue knight, seeing the pink knight nearly unprotected, began to tighten his grip on the bullet attacks, giving tighter spaces for Coraline to avoid. She was scared, with no doubt. But she pressed on because... it strangely, felt right to stay behind and do something with them, instead of just finding a way to avoid and escape them. She rushed extremely close to the blue knight before whispering, "Hey! Try to be more honest with how you feel towards... him!"

Briefly forgetting to take into account he was receiving the suggestion from an archenemy species, the blue knight immediately turned towards his smaller, pink partner, and rushed to a protective, and somewhat... fatherly, stance. "02, I... I am sorry. Sorry for making you get into such a dangerous situation. I appreciate how hard you try to fight, to be in synchrony, the energy you have every day. But I can't risk one that I grew to... appreciate like a... like a... son."

Silence dominated the scene. Only the bubbling of the purple liquid of Dreamland filled the atmosphere as it clicked on Royal Guard 01 what he did. "I mean... It was just a test of loyalty-"

"Poyo! Pop?" 02 gently cut off 01's word, with a sweet, childlike smile.

"...yes?" "Ice cream time! Poyo!" "Of course, young one."

"Awwww! They are lookin' so happily at each other!" Mabel commented with pure glee, while Coraline, with a smile, spared them and let them go in the way, like a father and son in arms.

"Huh... You did well making one be honest to the other to find a way." Dipper said, one of his hands on his neck's back and a grin. "Silly, this was your plan!" Coraline playfully pointed out.

The trio laughed hard enough while Coraline's journey continued, that they forgot to take into account the notifications in Coraline's phone. Over Ami getting too hooked on a series to remember about taking care of guiding the blue-haired human girl through Dreamland.


	22. Dreamland - The Show Must Go On

The view of the HEART of the Underground, once again, appeared on the horizon of Coraline's point of view. This time, however, it was much closer than before.

As quirky as this path was like, it was definitely working in bringing her close to the end of her journey. The moment where, probably and hopefully, at least a huge quarter of her questions would be answered, even if they weren't related to Dipper and Mabel. Talking about questions...

_Ring, ring! Click_. "Heyo! You've been kinda quiet this whole time. You're... scared of meeting _Sonic_?"

"Honestly... kind of," Coraline confessed, trying her best to ignore the anguished look on the brunette twin's faces. She still had some difficulty reminding herself that the apparent murder called Sonic and the kind King clad in blue were one and the same, mudding up her initial vision of what the confront with him was gonna be like. Especially, if to go back to her parents, she'd have to... She wouldn't have to, right? The thought of having to do it to go back home was too much, even if someone as haughty as her.

"No need to worry, alright? The king is a kind, brave symbol of justice! He's gonna let you go if you talk, and you'll be able to cross the barrier just with your human SOUL! S-So, stop all this worrying and put on a big smile!" _Click_.

That was almost the same thing Boris told her, only with a little more detail. Coraline really wanted to grasp that it was going to be easy like this, despite the fact the King turned out to be a more grey figure than she expected. One thing that stopped her from wrapping all her fingers around this hope, however, was the twin's faces.

Both demonstrated variations of sadness. Dipper's was lemony and cynical as if Ami just told a lie. Mabel's was foreboding and worried as if something horrible would happen in the recent future. It was like they both, combined, knew more than Ami did... or they knew Ami knew more than she let on. Solving this brain puzzle was starting to put strains on Coraline's view over the three of them, so she decided to laser-aim her mind on the goal of moving ahead. Go back home, even if it wasn't Michigan anymore.

Once again, the daring blue-haired girl found herself within a dark room.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "I'm back! And it seems like we got another dark room ahead! No problem, I got my hacking skills to help you up!"

Once the lights came up, Coraline found out she was exactly behind the stage worthy of a news TV show. Precisely, behind a square showing her actions as if she was the focus on the news. The rest of the stage simulated a view of a city in the daytime, and NiGHTS was the anchor, wearing a pretty fancy suit of pink color and a couple of papers on her hand.

"...you gotta be joking!"

" _UHHH YEAAAH!_ " NiGHTS cheerfully announced. "Good morning, dreamers of all ages and types! NiGHTS is here, to report at live in LATE NiGHT NEWS! Something interesting seems to be happening in the eastern part of Dreamland... Fortunately, we got someone to report live for us! My brave visitor, try to find something worthy of news! Our viewers are waiting for you!"

"Really? We get to be on camera?!" Mabel excitedly remembered until Dipper's grounded, unamused look reminded her, "Or at least... Coraline gets to...?"

"Yeah..." Dipper said, trying to hide how deep down, he too was kind of sad to only be seen by Coraline and his twin.

"Ugh... Here we go again." Coraline muttered to herself as she tried to find what to do while trying to ignore the possible crowd watching. After all, escaping the whole situation was impossible, considering three electrical forcefields were blocking her paths.

Out of the things she tried to find out, Coraline reluctantly decided to settle on reporting the strange, brown cat with glasses that was becoming a pretty recurring character during her journey.

"This cat... EXISTS!" NiGHTS put her two hands on her "head" while faking surprise. "This story's originality is increasing and getting off the charts! Attention, dreamers! The Visitor correspondent seems to have found... a _cat!_ "

Cue the awws from the audience.

"Isn't it neat?" NiGHTS continued. "Wouldn't you think this is the most heartwarming story of the collection? Wouldn't you think! This cat has everything from big ears, fluffy tail, beautiful brown fur... Whoops. My mistake! The tail was actually a fuse all along! Which means the kitty is a bomb!"

"WHAT?!" Coraline, and unknowingly for anyone but her, also Dipper and Mabel, shouted. Indeed, giving a second glance at the cat, it seemed more stiff and awkward than even expected from the cat that stole Boris's attack. Now, it made more sense, with the little flame appearing on its tail.

"No need to worry, though! Because this is only the beginning!" NiGHTS cheerfully announced, as suddenly, all the news show set descended, until Coraline could clearly see around, some other items. "Oh wow! Unfortunately, everything here is a bomb! Even the cute present and the fancy basketball!"

"CORALINE! WATCH OUT!"

The twin's warning reminded Coraline of the cat-bomb, nearly ready to explode. She got as far as she could without touching a second bomb and crouched down, putting her hands over her head and her knees close. The explosion, thankfully, was not damaging to the floor. It only created a temporary pack of smoke.

"Time's almost up!" NiGHTS warned, sounding like she was having a blast while oblivious of how _really_ scared the "Visitor" was. "And if the bombs aren't defused right on time... The mother of all bombs will take us down in two minutes! No more reports as a living being! You wouldn't want our viewers witnessing that, right? Good luck, starlight!"

"Aw great... Does anyone here know how to defuse a bo-" Coraline began to protest with the twins until a very convenient miracle happened.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "No need to worry! Your cellphone now has a super-useful program to defuse the bombs in the blink of an eye! If the bomb is in the **Defuse Zone** , press the defuse button! Go get them, bunny!" _Click_.

Really? Coraline smirked at the nice coincidence, while the twins just shared worried glances, theorizing silently between each other over what Ami could be hiding. In the meantime, Coraline began to try and defuse the bombs the best she could. "You did amazing!" Ami informed through the phone. "Go to the center now! There's one left there still!"

"Thanks for the reminder!" Coraline sassily tipped, prepared to head to the center, to a big, pink bomb with the countdown. Of course, this wasn't gonna be easy.

"Congratulations, Visitor! You deactivated every bomb here!" NiGHTS heartily congratulated her blue-haired opponent as if she was a friendly rival. "Otherwise, the big bomb would've exploded in two minutes! And now, it won't! ...You know, I was gonna prank you and say the bomb was gonna decrease to two seconds but, that was too mean-spirited anyway."

"At least you recognized that." Coraline pointed out after a relieved sigh.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "It is because I CHAN- Wait, what?" Ami came in, a bit too late for the party.

"Silly, silly Dr. Ami, you didn't even have to foil me!~" NiGHTS said, in a playful sing-song tone. "The Visitor did well on their own! And the viewers who stuck till the end too! See you later, starlight!" She continued before skyrocketing somewhere else. And Ami had some more words to speak through the phone.

"Woah... We did so well! ...H-Hey! I know I seemed kinda nutso at first, but. You know what? I-I think... I think I got the confidence to guide you through here! So don't worry about that childish robot, I'll protect you from her! We don't need to turn around on that... r-right? See ya!" _Click_.

To be honest, Coraline has been gaining a lot more patience since the Underground's zaniness began to serve as a distraction to the moving frustrations back on the Surface. Even though she really saw Ami as an annoying ditzy girl at first, she seemed smarter and genuinely nicer than she let on. Now, the twins... They felt the same, but couldn't help but feel there was something between these situations.

Absurd scenarios, convenient last-minute saves from Ami's side, NiGHTS being in the perfect spots to finish Coraline yet not doing so...

They were worried over Coraline planting her trust in the pink-skinned and haired scientist.


	23. Dreamland - Sword Dance/The Musical

Coraline could feel it. And she could see it too, from Dipper and Mabel's smiling, determined faces. She was close to her destiny, the HEART. Which meant, she was close to going back home, to her family... Honestly, she was going to miss everyone she met in the Underground, but she hopefully could convince her family of the amazing, if not quirky adventure she had down there.

The thrill of the realization her journey was near its end made her ignore a selling tent, oddly similar to the one of the Hidden Palace. That could probably turn out to be a mistake soon enough.

After a few last strays of puzzles, she and her companions realized, while she touched a four-point star. The smell of fresh rocks, flowing water, and metal dominated the air. It was mysterious, but it didn't make the blue-haired girl really scared. It made her feel... _determined_ , to figure out what was inside the dark cyan building ahead of her.

There was a small pool at the entrance... which sort of justified the sounds of flowing water. But there also many, many crystals. And rocks on the floor. Some of these, however, looked so sharp that they could destroy the poor feet that dared to step on them. These, Coraline made sure to try and avoid. However, a feminine voice echoed through the building as Coraline kept moving.

"Ohohoho! Did you hear what they said? They warned about the arrival of a human in a raincoat. I heard that they hate gems. I heard that they love to shatter them. I heard they love to poof their bodies. I heard... _that they are unskilled in combat_."

By the time the voice spoke those words, Coraline found herself among a place where enough backward moves would take her to spiky rocks. The figure that owned this voice appeared; a lady with pale white skin, an oval gemstone on her forehead, peach hair, a classy outfit, and a sword on hand.

"You think going around is easy without self-defense, right?" The white woman said... oddly, in a pretty sympathetic tone. "Pardon, but I disagree with your notion. And I think... a training session is at hand!" She proclaimed, right before tossing another sword at Coraline's hand.

_Really? Again?_ Coraline thought with exasperation as she reluctantly took the sword.

"Her name is Pearl," Dipper revealed the identity of the white-haired lady. "If she challenges you to a swordfight, excuse yourself."

"But why?" Mabel questioned right as the answer would come.

"Let this be a perfect battle! But first..." Pearl spoke, as a stream of sand inoffensively surrounded Coraline's SOUL, turning it into a light cyan color. "Cyan, for the color of a revolutionary!"

Coraline didn't agree much with the apparent color for a revolutionary. Once her SOUL was coated in cyan, she found it hard to move fast. She moved only slightly faster than a slow-motion scene in a movie. Not only that, but she was forcibly moving in a circle, no matter if she tried to aim for a straightforward direction. It turned out to be more of a blessing-curse as she tried to dodge Pearl's swords and spears.

"There was someone who informed me about you, you know?" Pearl began to monologue... right as Coraline was busy trying to fight off an amalgamation of swords and spears in a sandstorm. "Their smile was kind and friendly, but I swore... in the shadows, they morphed? Oh well, prepare for the midday sandstorm!"

Morphing shapes? A kind and friendly smile? ...The latter bit of info on who suggested for Pearl to attack Coraline was rising some alarming flags to the brunette twins. But they couldn't tell their suspicions yet, because the girl was fighting to stay alive and not attack while listening to Pearl's monologues about pearls in the Hidden Palace being able to move from there with... something, involving Coraline's SOUL. It was eerily terrifying to them, how one SOUL could fix anyone's problems in the Underground nowadays. This wasn't really the place they knew...

Then, the soft ringing, coming out of a rock. "Huh... A message from the pearls in the Hidden Palace?" Pearl spoke, before taking a good listen at it, and turning to face a pretty tired Coraline. "Hey! They saw you before, and... even if you're willfully weak, you never shattered a pearl! I misunderstood everything! Perhaps you're not the pearl-hating, raincoat-wearing human that the fellow warned me about. I'll let you pass here, whenever you like! No sandstorm bypassing or sword training required."

"Whew... thanks," Coraline said in a shaky breath, allowing her shaky fingers to drop off the sword without much resistance.

"See you later!" Pearl spoke with a grin before jumping back into the shadows.

"...That was another weird encounter." Dipper tried to brush off the bribe worries he shared with his sister, as Coraline moved forward.

At the very exit of Pearl's place, was another poster of NiGHTS. It was a tad bit different, however, talking about...

" _NiGHTS' latest stage performance: the story of two star-crossed lovers, with the harsh walls of fate keeping them apart..._ " Mabel read the poster out loud for her and her brother's friend/protege. "Oh boy! I can't wait to see that!" She excitedly spoke, oblivious that her brother and her friend/protege didn't really share much of the feelings. But neither could predict, one of them was going to be one of the said star-crossed lovers.

Coraline would step into a room fitting for a musical stage. A fake moon and stars hung by strings, and it apparently was at _night_.

"Oh, the visitor!" NiGHTS spoke, peeking a bit behind one of the props at the top of a giant set of stairs. She wore a poofy, pretty fancy dress, not too unfitting for a princess. "Could they be, the start of _a sweet dream?_ "

NiGHTS lowered from the staircase and began to sing, with an actually quite beautiful voice for such a childishly playful robot.

"♩ _Oh my dream, please, just run away_

_Our mighty king, forbids you, to stay_

_We can't be friends, we must live apart_

_Even if it destroys, it destroys, my poor heart_ ♩"

Coraline honestly couldn't agree with Mabel more, over how the singing was actually neat. And she couldn't deny with Dipper over how ridiculous it was when electrical barriers blocked the way, and a shower of rose petals began to fall from nowhere.

"♩ _Oh my dream, please, just run away_

_In the dungeons, they'll put you, to stay_

_You'll stay, in a loop of death and rebirth,_

_Even if it destroys, it destroys, my poor heart_

_So tragedic, so tragedic-edic-edic,_

_We had to invent, a brand new word, to describe how sad it is,_

_So tragedic, so tragedic-edic-edic,_

_We had to invent, a brand new word, to describe how sad it is_ ♩"

"Yeah... it's sad!" NiGHTS suddenly interrupted her own singing. "But unfortunately, just because you're a human, you gotta be put in a dungeon! So, see ya!" She playfully added, before pressing a button.

Before Coraline could even exclaim "what the hell," she and her twin companions were sent plummeting down into a whole new set of puzzle trouble. And the one responsible for it was treating it as if it was a rollercoaster ride and just another paper in the theater. "Oh no, what do I do? My dream was captured and unfairly thrown into the dungeon! A dungeon with such a nasty puzzle, that my dream is gonna turn into a nightmare pudding! Oh no, please spare them, oh mighty puzzle of colorful tiles!"

Coraline had to give a facepalm to that.

"I hope you already know this puzzle... Because if you don't cross it in thirty seconds, you're gonna burn in a hellish fire!" As soon as NiGHTS spoke those words, a column of fire emerged pretty close. "So tragedic! Really, so tragedic that I'm sad, eternally repeating this word! Tragedic! Please get it right, starlight!"

After trying to make an effort to take the situation seriously again, Coraline took the twin's hands right under NiGHTS' "nose" as she took on the color tile puzzle. All while NiGHTS unwittingly muddied her efforts to take the situation seriously by singing a darkly comedic version of her melodramatic, star-cross love tune.

"♩ _Oh my dream, has fallen down from grace_

_It shall now become, a nightmare disgrace_

_Hope they remember to not be a clown_

_Or in the fire, they'll drown!_

_Well, let's throw a hat over the sky_

_And give them a clap, for the effort of the try_

_But let's not hope they won't die_

_Because at this point, the answer is that they will fry!_ ♩"

It was pretty much in the nick of time, but Coraline proved NiGHTS wrong by concluding the color tile puzzle and crossing to the other side in the nick of time. "Hah, gotcha!" She couldn't help but boast a little, for Mabel's amusement.

"Well then, you made it through! Congrats! That means the flames gotta go!" NiGHTS heartily began her reply. The flames promptly dissipated afterward. "I gotta say, you were a lucky one... Unfortunately, sometimes, even the lucky ones meet their lucky streak barrier at Morton's fork. Visitor, it's not over yet, for I have arranged the perfect last meeting for us-"

_Ring, ring! Click_. "Don't worry! I just need to type a few super-ultra-complicated codes to save you from the flames! ...Wait, what?"

"Ami, the human Visitor got the situation down." NiGHTS cheekily explained to the pink scientist. "I was just... giving the typical _we will meet one last time somewhere else_ monologue."

" _Oooh_. ...well, that's a swell job you did there! She's surely gonna give up soon!"

"Ah, I'm afraid I'm much more determined than that!" NiGHTS valiantly spoke. "I was just doin' Ami's last-second job for her! Now, back to the monologuing... Aw yeah! It ain't over yet, starlight! We are gonna meet again... soon... at the HEART!" She finally concluded before taking off.

Of _course_ , the last step of the probable way back home wasn't gonna be easy for Coraline. Nothing exactly was, in spite of most of the magic being's kindness and Dipper and Mabel's guidance and company on most solitude moments. Before she could speak to the twins again about what happened... Ami came in, with a set of more sensible, out-of-the-heart words.

"You beat her all on your own this time! You did AMAZING! ...But, although this sounds kinda weird and intimate, can I tell you something? Before I met you, I-I... kinda... well. Kinda wasn't a big fan of myself after a period of my life was over. After my singing days, I felt like the ultimate wrecker. One that could do nothing w-without, letting others down. But ever since I began to guide you... I felt better over myself. So, I gotta say, thanks for letting me help ya!"

"You're welcome," Coraline spoke with a little grin.

"Well... We're kinda near to the HEART now, right? You just need to cross the NiGHTS Hotel! We can do this together, you and me!" _Click_.

"You're not forgetting us too, right?" Dipper reminded.

"Not even close." Coraline tranquilized, offering both of the twins her hands, as she continued to the last set of jumping steam puzzles to the path of said NiGHTS Hotel.

Even though they hid frustratingly mysterious secrets from her, they were still kind and helpful, and nice to have around to remind herself that she wasn't completely lonely in this world. But perhaps, it's not only _them_ who use a nice guise to hide their little great mysteries... as Coraline shall learn a bit soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a kick of amusement, imagine that the musical's melody is the latter half of The Amazing Water from NiGHTS into Dreams.


	24. Dreamland - Ink Is Leaking Somewhere Else

Coraline and the twins couldn't really deny, how the official NiGHTS Hotel looked pretty warm, colorful, childlike, and inviting. Especially the logo craved in gold, with two copies of NiGHTS mimicking a flying pose with magic sparkles coming out of their hands. Even the carpet looked like something a younger child would roll over for hours without getting tired. Or at least... someone with the tastes of a young child, as Mabel was trying to feel its fuzziness, to no avail. It was for Coraline's shock mixed with delight that she recognized a certain recurring character, that contrasted with the colors but complimented the place's cheerful appearance.

"Heya, toots!" Bendy chipperly greeted. "Ain'tcha goin' to the HEART as I heard? Well, how about a talk over some dinner first?"

Almost blissfully ignoring the twin's tugging as if to encourage her not, with a sincere smile, Coraline decided, "Sure."

"How swell! Thanks, buddy!" Bendy did a little joyful swing and laugh, before chivalry offering his hand to Coraline. "Let's go! I got a shortcut!~"

Since Coraline, Dipper, and Mabel already knew the way Bendy moved around faster, it didn't come out as freaky as last time. The cartoonish demon didn't even have to stick out his hand this time, the blue-haired human girl fully dived in, holding the twin's hands, into the black, inky pool, and in the blink of an eye, the view changed from a somewhat illuminated alleyway to a beautiful, busy dining room with fancy tables, complete with petite, beautiful candles.

"Well, we are here now!" Bendy announced gleefully while Coraline, and the twins, moved to the opposite side of the table. He stretched himself before getting a... different stance. One that was only hinted back in Slendy's; a more mature, and serious side of him. "So... Your tale is about to end, right?"

"Yeah..." Coraline sighed. She couldn't deny that, if she somehow escaped, she'd dearly miss the friends she made down there, even if she had her parents back.

"Ya must really wanna go to the good ol' warm home of ours. Toots... I know exactly how that feels." Bendy continued, showing a sympathetic tone in his voice. "Altho... sometimes ya just gotta take some things people give. Here, you found already lots of nice meals, swell friends... Is that really worth it to go back?"

With a dash of wisdom that not even Dipper and Mabel could see coming, Coraline answered with, "Honestly... yeah. Even if back there it's dull, boring, and nobody pays attention to me. It's still my home..."

Bendy, taken a little aback, tried to shrug it off. "Nevermind! I'll root for ya, my toots. ...Hey, hope ya don't mind, but I got a story for ya."

A story? Now that was perking both Coraline and the twin's interests. Sure enough, once Bendy realized the attention of the only one of them who was still fully in the corporeal world, he cleared his throat and began to tell the story.

"If ya remember, I'm _kinda_ a sentry in the Recording Forest. But for such a boring job of lookin' for humans, of course, a little devil like me would rather find thrilling things to do! And once, when I was takin' a stroll in the woods, whistling for myself... I found a gigantic, I say, gigantic door, locked from the inside out! Perfect training ground for knock-knock jokes, I say!

I kept knocking it for days and days, saying, _Knock knock!_ Then, from the other side, a maiden spoke quite graciously. _Who is it?_ I responded as per usual style, _Sin! Oh my gosh, a sin? Sin-king this joke here!_ "

Bendy wistfully giggled at his own little joke, unaware that Coraline, Dipper, and Mabel were whispering among each other. As they knew _exactly_ who was the lady behind the locked door, deep in Recording Snow's forest.

"And she laughed along with me. Like it was the most swell joke in a _long_ time. The train of jokes kept going, and so did the laughs. She was the most receptive audience ever! Then, role reversal happened, and it was her turn to knock on the door! _Knock knock!_ Then I said _who's there_? _Beat red! Beat red who? Beat red, my old little lady heart!_ Heh, I gotta admit that lady caught me very very good.

I think we both lost track of time telling those little jokes. But unfortunately, ya know, I couldn't stay in place forever. Boris and I need bedtime stories to put our spirits high up! But she and I vowed to see each other again soon. We did it again and again, it was basically routine! Daily stand-up comedies with one audience member each! Golly, it was GREAT!"

"Wow..." Coraline could only mutter in amazement. ...While trying to ignore the jealously present in the twin's brown eyes. Mostly Dipper's.

Bendy's grin faded, though, as he continued.

"But then... One day, it was like her laughing spirit kinda crashed down hard. I had to ask her what was wrong. She told me something... a little bit curious. _Please, can you promise me to do something once I human crosses this_ _door? Please, I beg, protect them the best way you can._ Honestly, though? Promises ain't really my thing. That maiden's voice was fair, but I don't know who she is! But golly, someone who likes those kinds of jokes has some perseverance that's impossible to say no to! Do ya know what I mean?"

Coraline chuckled awkwardly, exactly in the way of someone that knew part of a story, like a character or the details of an event, but never explained it simply because it didn't cross their mind. "Not really..." She confessed.

Bendy was quick to return the awkward chuckle, drumming his fingers on the table and lowering his head, as if he was guilty of something. His tone of voice grew ambiguous but undoubtedly dark, much for the blue-haired girl's worry. "That promise I made... Ya know what would entail if she kept her mouth shut? ...Heheh, pal..."

When he lifted his head back up, his horns looked a little wonkier than usual, as if they were melting. Thick, black ink was leaking through Bendy's head, covering his eyes and dipping from his horns and head sides. His grin was stretching farther than expected, and his voice... his voice lacked the jolly warmth or even the mature, comforting firmness he demonstrated just seconds ago. It was deadpan, cold, almost threatening. And the trio of kids swore, even if it was their fears fabricating this auditory illusion, that they heard a second, deeper voice, as he spoke a, not so warm line.

" **Y o u w o u l d ' v e n e v e r h a v e a c h a n c e a t l i v i n g.** "

...

"Coraline, please run..." Mabel begged in a whisper, tugging Coraline's raincoat and pointing to the opposite direction of the cartoonish but threatening demon. Dipper shared the sentiment of his twin, along with resentment towards the ink demon.

Bendy's creepy grin faded after some seconds as if he seemingly noticed Coraline's rising panic and fear over the situation. He wiped the ink from his eyes, revealing how emotively worried his pie-cut eyes were. "Toots, toots it's alright! That was just a lil' joke! I mean, didn't I protect ya with everything I got?"

Coraline was now a bit too nervous to respond with words, so she chose to simply nod her head with a nervous smile.

"I mean, ya didn't die even once! That's something to look up to!" Bendy optimistically pointed out. He proceeded to walk away, with his usual jolly smile, as if he just wasn't the conductor of an emotional train ride. "Guess that's all, toots! Just try to love yourself. Cause someone wants for ya to try your best." He spoke, before sinking into a black pool of ink with a bow, leaving once again a stain as the sole mark of his presence.

"...The fact he knows Amy doesn't change how, uh, _weird_ he is." Dipper pretty much chose words that did hide somewhat well how distrustful he felt over Bendy.

"I mean, at least he didn't hurt her! That's something, right?" Mabel tried to shed a bit of light into the reveal that, had it not been for Amy, Coraline's journey would've been much shorter.

Coraline herself didn't have any real words to articulate how she felt towards Bendy. She still saw him as a friend... but she came to realize how lucky she was that he returned the sentiment because of a promise.

The trio would've stayed there much longer than any of them expected. All to the tune of a slow, but cheerful, upbeat tune fitting for the '30s.


	25. Dreamland - Diving into Dreams

Thank goodness, the cloud of thought dissipated quickly, with Coraline, Dipper, and Mabel settling on collectively viewing Bendy as a friendly but kind of shady ally, and they explored the rest of NiGHTS Hotel. Perhaps, the weirdest they could note out of the place was a bedroom with a bed so gigantic it'd fit probably more than one family if the weight didn't get on the way, ice cream and milkshakes made out of actual ice and cream (vanilla flavored), and the gigantic fountain statue of NiGHTS with arms wide forward spraying water... directly into the carpet, wetting it up. It was pretty absurd.

But finally, once Coraline would step through the northern exit of the NiGHTS Hotel, with a couple of NiGHTS-Brand ice creams in the pocket, it was finally there. The entrance of the HEART. It was clear just from that place's entrance that, quite unlike the rest of Dreamland, that did contain a balance of mystical, pure suburban dream innocence and shards of futuristic technology, it was all technology deep in the HEART. Perhaps, more would be noticed, if it wasn't for a duo of shadows that snickered before rushing into the HEART.

_Ring, ring! Click_. "What, who are they? It was just supposed to be- I-I mean, NiGHTS promised only she would be here! But eh, worrying about that is the least of problems!" _Click_.

It was actually a top priority worry of Coraline and the twins, but one could take it as a matter of preference. Nevertheless, it was there. The penultimate staircase to go back home. Coraline ran through all kinds of crazy situations, another one would matter less for her.

This one was more, crazy in the annoyance-grasping kind of way. No matter how much she pressed it at Ami's command, Coraline couldn't open the elevator door. This forced her to climb the HEART manually, and boy was it a labyrinth that required the patience of one with a cyan SOUL. Occasionally along the way, magic beings that were identified by Dipper and Mabel as, most of the time, stronger versions of the beings in the Hidden Palace, who would require her to have a lot of time to dodge, and figure out what could make them stop pursuing her so relentlessly, like a bunch of killers.

She felt like she was ready to snap... But she chose to not give in, as much as her frustrated side wanted to. They didn't fully deserve something so drastic and swift as, being gone.

The kile was long, but finally, after Coraline crossed one of the bridges, she found a door. That had to be the door containing the passage to the castle of the King. That hope.. filled her with _determination_. She stepped inside, and one should take an easy guess of who was there for the final confrontation.

"Aw yeah! Finally found ya, starlight!" NiGHTS cheered. But this time, her apparently cherry tone hid something strange behind it... something that'd roll over her words and give meaning to them. "It's time to have our final confrontation, for you to beat this childish antagonist... _Except not really_!"

"What do you mean?" Coraline asked, putting her fists on her hips and giving a confused eyebrow to NiGHTS.

The purple robot began to gesture with her hands to explain... many things. "I didn't become a maddened lunatic, it was all part of the show! And unfortunately, Ami had a role on everything behind your back as well. She kinda loved watching your adventure behind a big screen, and she wanted to become a part of it. She inserted herself into the story, by activating puzzles, disabling the elevators, and even picking me to be your antagonist! To save you from dangers that... actually were a bit silly."

"...WHAT?!" Coraline exclaimed with a mix of shock and horror. The way NiGHTS cheerily explained the facade probably made it a lot worse for the blue-haired girl. But Dipper and Mabel... they suspected it as soon as the cracks became clearer. "It can't be!"

"I know! But Ami just wants to be the great person... she doesn't think she is." NiGHTS explained, showing a pretty big degree of sympathy for the shocked, betrayed Coraline in spite of them both being on opposing sides. "And right now, we are about to reach her arc's climax! Ami is right now outside the room... She was supposed to interrupt the battle, deactivate me and save the day, make you so happy you don't wanna leave..."

Her tone gained a different edge. Not exactly more mature, but more calm and responsible. "But I had enough of hiding behind this role that doesn't define me. I actually genuinely love humans! I just wanna entertain everyone! Everyone deserves a good show, with imagination coming directly from the wildest dreams. And how you cap it off, without a _big climax?!_ "

Coraline turned around once footsteps were heard, to find for her surprise, Ami rushing towards her and NiGHTS. But before she could even have a chance to get close, a door appeared and blocked the way. Ami pounded the door in vain with her fists, with only the light metallic bangs and her muffled voice being audible to the human she tried to be part of the world of. "No! The door's locked! It won't budge!"

Stage lights of light violet color surrounded NiGHTS as she took a microphone and resumed her kid-like playfulness. "Sorry everybody, but we gotta reboot the entire program! To compensate, this will be the best finale of your lives!" She took a dramatic boom to her voice as the platform lifted, high and high to the skies. " _Real adventure! Real bonds! Real dream shattering!_ Tonight, on... **The Night of a Tragedic Revenge!** "

Dipper and Mabel were quick to offer silent, but firm physical support for Coraline and the troubled state of mind she found herself into. The next words of NiGHTS were a blur, compared to Coraline's struggle on whenever or not she should forgive Ami for the treachery. The only things she could make out was her confession that she rearranged the HEART and sent the mercenaries on her and that she was conflicted whenever or not to stop Sonic's plans on humanity by taking Coraline's SOUL and going to the Surface herself, as it'd put an end to, not only an innocent kid but one she was ironically getting attached too.

_Ring, ring_. It was Ami calling. A part of Coraline wanted to do this on her own, after all the treachery and lies, while another part still knew that, in spite of the manipulation, she was still a nice girl suffering from a nasty case of self-esteem issues. The more sympathetic half won, in spite of Dipper and Mabel's half-shared sentiments to the pragmatic side.

_Click._ "L-Look... I'm really sorry for... W-What I did... please don't give up there! NiGHTS has one weakness! It's something of a work in progress... Did you notice she always faces forward? It's because she has a switch in her back, that'll make her more vulnerable if you press it... W-Well, b-bye!" _Click_.

"You still trust her?" Dipper pointed out carefully. "Yeah, she was using you all along!" Mabel added out, with a tingle of a heartache.

"Correction; I _forgive_ her, but didn't forget," Coraline explained and with a reluctant sigh, pointed in a distant direction and screamed loud enough for NiGHTS to pay attention, "Hey! Is that a shooting star over there?"

"You're kidding me?! We can see shooting stars from here?!" NiGHTS squeed not unlike a child at a big park, before turning around. "Where are they? We gotta make one big wish for the audi- ...ence..."

Right as NiGHTS was distracted, Coraline rushed and flipped the switch. NiGHTS' voice actually shifted volumes, pitches, and quality as she turned around slowly, and slowly spoke in a painful tone. "You... actually flipped... my switch...!"

After struggling to speak that sentence, NiGHTS gave a scream as all her body parts began to spin in motions that contrasted each other. It kept on until, in a few seconds, her body crushed itself into a bright light, from which Coraline and the twins had to cover their eyes. NiGHTS' voice echoed again, but this time, instead of the flat, robotic pattern with the poor audio quality from before, it sounded clearer, more alive, and vibrant than ever.

" _AW YEAH!~_ "

The bright light finally faded, only for two spotlights hanging up above to shine on NiGHTS' spot. Thick smoke was initially the only thing visible until a silhouette appeared. It seemed to be NiGHTS but in a vastly different way. Instead of the geometrically shaped, simple robot flying on a cyan flame and with arms, it was a humanoid with a jester hat, a very slim body, big hands, and big boots for feet.

"It seems you finally flipped my switch. This means that you are aching to find out about my new design! Luckily for you, griefer, I wanted to show this off for a long time! So, I'm gonna give you, a very special gift..."

The smoke finally cleared, beholding a wide-eyed Coraline, a confused Dipper, and an ecstatic Mabel to NiGHTS' second form in details. The majority of her outfit was purple, with shades of yellow, pink, and red. Her boots in their tippy-toes easily made her stay uptight, against gravity itself. She had small shoulder pads, still partially unfinished arms with handcuffs covering white gloves, and a vibrant red jewel on her "belly button".

"As a reward, I'm gonna turn your biggest dreams... _ABSOLUTELY reality!_ "

"Oh my gosh, she looks gorgeous!" Mabel couldn't help but coo out. Coraline and Dipper were distracted, however, with a giant viewer count slowly descending. The blue-haired girl had to do something... likely, make the audience higher so NiGHTS could leave her alone.

Not that it was the easiest of tasks. NiGHTS' new form was definitely more nimble and agile, able to quickly send yellow hoops that Coraline had to pass her whole body through to not get damaged, colorful balls, and mini clones of her previous form letting out mini-moons, and yet be able to crack a smile, jokes, and catchphrases through it all. But Coraline also her wits, a last-second new function on the cell phone that turned her SOUL into a mint green and gave her a pan-shaped shield to protect her from some of the hits... and the twins to suggest her some crowd attracting tricks.

"Try to toss the stick! It might not work but it's worth a shot!" Dipper suggested, and hilariously enough, it actually worked, with NiGHTS graciously catching it as a wizard would do to a wand. "Stick an epic pose! All blockbusters have that!" Mabel suggested, and just like in the Surface, the attempt at the heroic pose, while clumsily done by Coraline, was enough to magnetize people in the crowd.

However, during one of NiGHTS' jewel blast attacks sessions, Coraline accidentally managed to reflect two of the shots right back at NiGHTS, bursting out her two arms. Even though the robotic jester gladly played along with the role of the obliviously murderous antagonist and still kind of reflected the role even with an inner conflict and sense of guilt of killing a friend, Coraline couldn't help but scream out in horror and guilt "I'm sorry!" while Dipper and Mabel gasped in shock and surprise.

"My... my arms!" NiGHTS softly moaned, briefly looking genuinely hurt before shrugging it off with her big, toothy grin. "Eh, who needs them to fly towards victory? I still got my amazing legs to back me up!"

Soon enough, however, for Coraline's further guilt and shock, after a few more mirrored blasts, NiGHTS' beautiful legs with boots also blasted away. Although she did seem phased by this as much as Coraline was guiltily hurt and Dipper and Mabel were invisibly saddened, for her, soon the pain didn't matter as much when the counter of viewers reached, exactly, _10,000_.

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe it! I somehow reached a milestone! The most viewers ever right now!" NiGHTS began to celebrate cheerfully as if she just wasn't rendered limbless. "One viewer will have a chance to talk to me before I leave the Underground! Let's see who's gonna be the lucky one!" As a phone was pulled to her, she immediately began to ring. "Heya! What are your words about the very last show of mine?" She spoke, unaware that the voice on the other line would be so, so dear and... familiar to her.

" _Hey... NiGHTS. My life is so dull and boring, but seeing you laugh and act like a young, foolish child, somehow... brings me back joy. I... I just can't believe it's the last time I'll see you... Farewell, NiGHTS..._ "

"Wait, no! Please, Rea-" NiGHTS moaned, now genuinely heart ached before the phone gave off dead beeps. "He hung up already..." Trying to ignore the ache felt in her circuits, she decided, "I'm gonna call someone else!"

To NiGHTS surprise, though, the callers had nothing but warm declarations about how her shows gave them something, even small, in their lives. From a simple joy to a pleasure that could work out through hard times.

The jester chuckled softly at the realization. "I... I understand now... Thank you so much, guys..." NiGHTS spoke to the audience, before turning towards Coraline and, unwittingly, towards Dipper and Mabel too, who were somewhat the co-star actor helpers.

"Visitor, perhaps I'll stay here a bit longer. Humanity has gotten enough stars, but the magical beings, they only have me. If I left, I'd lose a dear audience, and they would have a void that could never be touched by anyone. And now, now you have proven yourself to be super-strong! In fact... maybe, you are strong enough to pass Sonic! Humanity is safe in your hands... and I think it's for the best I chose to give up in taking your SOUL. Because, this form of mine... consumes a ton of energy. Soon, I'm gonna run out of battery... but please, don't fret and cry, my friend! It wasn't your fault. Make your dreams come true, starlight. Everyone, thank you so much! You all are the dream delight in my night..."

Soon after the monologue, NiGHTS' emotive, cat-like blue eyes began to lose their light, until they got pitch-black. The pupils with thick eyelashes finally closed. The purple showwoman robot, who had the joy, playfulness, and sneakiness of a child, the passion of an entertainer, and the will to hop and fly bravely in the sky, now sat motionless, limbless and neutral expressed.

The twins still sensed that Coraline felt pretty much blameful for what she did to the robot that deep down just wanted to entertain a human, and gave her a hug. Coraline was on the brink of tears, fighting the urge to feel stronger...

"Gosh, finally got rid of the locker! Are you two..." Ami initially triumphantly spoke, until she noticed NiGHTS' unconscious, limbless body. "Oh my gosh! NiGHTS!" She yelled, taking the burden of crying over NiGHTS' coma from Coraline without even knowing. She checked the body, dismantling a bit of it. "Please NiGHTS, wake up!... Oh gosh, it was just the batteries! I... I don't what I would've... d-done if NiGHTS... if she... B-But that's not so bad, isn't it? I could always just make another robot, just like this one! ...So, why don't you go ahead?"

Coraline's guilt was lifted off just a little bit after the reveal that NiGHTS was ultimately fine, and she didn't break her wordless vow to not harm anyone to find a way back home. Dipper looked pretty relieved, and Mabel felt nearly cathartic too. Following the pink scientist's suggestion, the blue-haired human girl would lead the way, to one last stretch of the HEART.

She could already see a glimpse of it up ahead. The elevator to the King's castle. This was it... Except that-

"Hey, hey! Wait, I must tell you something really important!" Ami yelled, stopping Coraline mid tracks. After a few huffs and puffs to catch her breath, she began, "So... you're about to meet Sonic, right? And you must be pretty excited, right? That... you're gonna be free..."

"Well... excited is not the right word." Coraline half-explained. Learning that the kind king actually killed six people of her kind, and of her same age range, made her wonder if everything everyone said about the king was true or exaggerated by the public, and meeting him to make him take her to the barrier was the ultimate test. Dipper and Mabel were definitely positively excited though, not unlike children expecting their parents to come back home after a long day.

"Please don't step into the elevator yet! I really got something to tell!" Ami begged as Coraline tried to awkwardly ignore the panicking scientist and open the elevator. Thankfully, she paused. "Look I... I would've told you goodbye but- aw heck it, screw it... I lied to you. One SOUL of a human is not enough to cross the barrier... it must be unified with the SOUL of a magical being. If you really wanna go home... You m-must... _kill Sonic in combat_ and take his SOUL. I'm sorry." She sorrowfully revealed before walking away, a pitifully sad and guilty mess.

Coraline just refused to believe it. The thought of having to hurt someone to go back home was too much for her gut. She hanged on her old belief that there had to be a way to escape without having to hurt anyone. The twins refused it too... not because of the fact Coraline had to kill, but on who she had to kill. They prayed, dearly, to every entity they knew in life, that she'd find another way to not hurt their...

The blue-haired girl and her ghostly twin companions took the long elevator in silence. Dread, thoughtfulness, was all that defined their minds.

Coraline, though, would receive the answer to one of her first questions in her journey, soon enough.


	26. Green Hill Castle - Mysterioustale

The entrance to the castle was nothing like Coraline expected. It was a mix of gorgeous, with the aspect of hills completely in harmony with nature while still housing towering, beautiful homes in the distance, and gloomy, with the predominant color being a miserable, light gray. The girl was so amazed by the view that her steps slowed down as if she was trying to capture with her brown eyes every single moment of the amazement she felt.

Dipper and Mabel, though, reacted differently. As Coraline paused to look at them, they looked like they were back at home, but something was missing. And they knew exactly what, because their looks combined sadness with nostalgia. However, as soon as they noticed Coraline was looking, they looked at each other, as if she was about to find their biggest secret. Which Coraline genuinely wanted, as in spite of growing fond of the contrasting ghost twins, she was still a bit infuriated at, in her head, the grand mystery that was their past, how they died, and how they knew so much about monsters.

Perhaps, the place the two described as New Home was going to give her the answers soon.

Inside, the house had eerie similarities to the house of Amy Rose back in the Hidden Palaces, down to the room structure. However, there were key differences that made this less warm and welcoming like the haven of the Rose and more melancholic... and more like, something like a remnant of the past.

Like everything else in that place, the main color was a shade of light gray. The staircase of the basements was blocked by chains connected by two lockers, and there was a note that stated exactly where the keys were; in the kitchen and the hallway. By the time Coraline would manage to get the keys and pass, she'd find a calendar from an ancient date, with a day marked on it, that brought a painful look on Dipper and Mabel's faces. Orange and magenta roses were present in some parts of the house, especially the hallway.

The living room had books themed about other culinary recipes than Amy's, and the table had exactly five chairs; two big enough to comport adults, three small enough to comport children or at least pre-teenagers. The fridge of the kitchen had some long-untouched containers of food, including a drink that looked like the birthchild of coffee and nightmares. The trash can had crumbled recipes for pies thrown in it, and the sink had some old blue fur as if it fell off its owner after they washed their face for hours and hours.

The positions of the room under renovations were swapped from Amy's house. After taking a good, long look in the mirror, Coraline realized that, despite all that happened, all the wacky friends she had and wacky adventures she endured by not harming anybody... deep down, she was still her. A new her, perhaps.

One of the bedrooms was fit for a paternal person keeping memorabilia from his children, such as an elaborate art of a rose, and a goofy, colorful sweater, both made for him out of the unconditional love of his children.

The second of the bedrooms was perfectly fit for a child. Or more, for a group of siblings living in the same room. There were dusty toys, both on the floor and on a toybox. The wardrobe was full of striped shirts, short-sleeved shirts, and sweaters. Two beds, one slightly bigger than the other... and that Dipper advised about the bigger bed, "Please don't sleep on it. You might never wake up again."

Things became slightly clearer and clearer as Coraline inspected three more details on the children's bedroom. First, a drawing housing a picture of a family, where everyone seemed to be happy. Three of the figure's body types reminded her of Amy, but two reminded her, eerily... of Dipper and Mabel. The silence they made after she gave a questioning look towards them began to raise doubts in her head. Then and last, there were a pair of presents laying randomly around the room. Both contained a pair of items.

One, two rings, one colored orange, and the other magenta. Together, they had a message written; Friends Till The End. The other, a tough, leather-cover book, and a grappling hook.

"Can I... take these?" Coraline asked, worried about taking the property of her friends. But since they were dead, they technically had no living owner anymore, so they reluctantly and silently accepted for Coraline to hold onto the Friendship Rings and guard the bizarre weapons that, somewhat reflected Dipper and Mabel's personalities.

But, the more fledged answer for one of Coraline's main questions through the journey finally came, when magic beings from all parts of the Underground came through the halls of the sad house and beyond to tell her about a tragic tale.

" _Once upon a time, a pair of human twins fell on the Hidden Palace. Injured and terrified, both humans called for help._

_Tails, the King's loyal protege, heard the human's call. He carried the twins back into the castle._

_Over time, Tails and the twins grew as close as siblings would. The King and Queen treated the twins as their own children. The Underground bloomed with hope._

_But one day... Both of the twins were struck with a deadly illness. With their last steady breath, they begged to see the roses from their home. But we couldn't do anything._

_The next day... The next day... ...the twins died._

_Tails, overtaken by pain, absorbed the SOUL the twins shared in life. He became a being with almighty power. With that power, he was able to cross the barrier. He took the twins' bodies into the sunset, back to their home village. Once Tails reached the center of the village, he found a bed of unique roses and laid the humans onto it._

_A scream cut through the air. The villagers saw Tails holding the bodies. They thought he murdered the children. The humans threw everything they had at him. He was slashed, bit by bit. If he could, he would've destroyed them all... But Tails never fought back. Tails, with a tender smile, held the human twins and went back home._

_Tails came back home, torn and beaten. Once he stepped onto the castle, he fainted. His dust scattered over the garden._

_The kingdom was hopeless. The King and Queen lost their protege and adopted children in a single night. All, once again, thanks to the humans._

_The King decided he was tired of our suffering. All the humans that come here must perish. If we gather enough SOULs, the barrier can be shattered forever._

_It won't take long. King Sonic will help us escape. King Sonic has our faith. King Sonic will give us justice._

_Why aren't you excited? Why aren't you happy? You should wear a smile too. Your freedom is coming_."

Coraline wasn't either excited or happy... for many reasons. Because she'd have to hurt their King to achieve her freedom, or he would probably destroy her home... including her neighbors and parents. But also, because she finally learned about the twin's story. They fell from the Surface, were adopted by the loving royal family... and died. She remembered the photo of the family with everyone smiling... if Tails was that one that had two tails, looked like a fox, and was smiling happily, she had a visual idea of how close he was to the twins when they were alive.

"I'm... so sorry." Coraline sympathetically said to the twins. "I knew you two must've met your end here but... I didn't know you had a family..."

"We're sorry too, for hiding everything about us from you..." Dipper held his hands together. "We... we thought you'd hate us."

"I don't even know how the heck we came back," Mabel confessed. "But... I miss Amy... As in, Mom... I miss Dad too..." The goofy girl began to slowly tear up. "And I miss Tails..."

Mabel began to break down crying. Dipper was also tearing up, missing the one two-tailed fox he and Mabel grew to love like a brother, but his first focus was to try and comfort his sister over the loss that both shared. Coraline gave both of them a hug and, in spite of her own tears towards their suffering, waited patiently until both of them felt better to move on. "Don't worry guys, I don't hate you." She reassured them with a smile as their steps continued.

Coraline would find herself a few steps later on in a gigantic room colored in cobalt blue, full of pillars, and windows with the Amulet Serosity symbol. Sunlight bathed the room and gave it some warmth. It could work as the setup for either a battle or a judgment... the latter which was about to happen soon. By the person that Coraline didn't expect to meet there.

"So, ya finally got here," Bendy spoke after emerging from a pool of ink. "Your journey is gonna end soon. You'll meet the King a few rooms ahead. You two are going to decide the fate of this world. But let's not get too hasty here... First, you must be judged."

"What?" Coraline quietly asked. She knew being a human was already kind of a crime in this world because of the King's children's killers, but what could she be judged for?

"You must be judged for every action you took. You must be judged for every drop of EXP you gained." Bendy was quick to begin his explanations. "What's EXP? It's an acronym that stands for **execution points**. A way to tell how much pain you inflicted on others. If you kill someone, your EXP increases, and with it, your LOVE does as well. Love is an acronym as well... for **Level of Violence**. A way to tell your capacity to inflict pain. You kill more, and it becomes easier to not care. You care less, and less you'll feel the pain of the ones you harm. It makes it easier to hurt others."

With that new set of information, Coraline remembered with a shiver on her neck the conversation she had with Bill shortly after falling on the Underground...

Bendy's tone grew warmer, and while his seriousness didn't lessen much, his joy was back as he stated with pride, "But you... You never gained any LOVE! Of course, that doesn't mean you're silly or childish, just that deep down, your heart is tender. Every time you tried to figure out what to do, you tried to figure out the best option. Despite your annoyance, you never hurt anyone. Even running, you did it with a smile... You didn't gain LOVE, but you gained _love_. Golly, I know how confusing this must be!"

Coraline couldn't help but grin a little. Perhaps the smiling bit was right.

Bendy continued speaking after taking a deep breath. "Now, you're gonna try to face the biggest challenge of your journey. Every action you did, will impact the future of this world. If ya don't fight, Sonic will have your SOUL and humanity is gonna be doomed. But if you take his SOUL and go to your dear old home... Everyone is gonna stay trapped on the Underground. What you will do?"

The blue-haired girl wasn't so sure herself. This moral dilemma was serving as the ultimate challenge to her goal of going back home, to her parents, without having to harm anyone. The twins could experience her conflicted, worried emotions, and remember about themselves in the past...

"Toots, if I was in your place, I would've gone to sing the blues." Bendy half-joked. "But nah, ya ain't that kind of person, and you didn't give up by doin' that. You always had something called determination. If you keep holding onto that, and what your heart really desires... I believe you're gonna do something good. Pal, we all do believe in you. Good luck." He concluded before sinking into a pool of ink, with a sweet, encouraging smile that managed to contaminate Coraline's blue mood for a few steps.

Finally, the entrance to the throne room, as a sign labeled. Coraline built the moral bravery to head inside, the reluctant twins right behind.

The throne room was the only room in the entire place thriving with color. Orange and magenta roses decorated the center, while lush grass filled the remnants. There was one throne ahead, and one covered by a white blanket on the upper right corner. And, as Coraline dreaded...

"D-Dad..." Dipper and Mabel muttered together in an anguished whisper, pointing out the other living being in the room.

King Sonic, from the back, seemed similar to Amy Rose in appearance. His spikes, however, were bigger and completely on the back, without an effort to replicate human hair, he didn't have a fringe, his fur was a sky blue, and he had a long, marine blue cape held by a golden shoulder pad, along with a crown emblazoned by one blue sapphire. He was humming quite joyously, blissfully unaware of what species the newcomer was.

"Someone here already? Nice! Just gimme a while, I almost got done watering the flowers!" Sonic said, sounding quite laidback, cool, and passionately friendly. Once he was done, he'd turn at Coraline and stare at her with his emerald green eyes. "Heya! How can I-"

It only hit him that he was talking to the eight, last human needed to free the kind he ruled, to make Sonic step back in a gasp. It hit him like a hammer. His eyes widened, and he looked down, trying to crack a painfully sad grin. "I wanna say so bad, _how about we grab some chili dogs?_ , but... You know the drill." He said, before taking a few steps towards one of the room's windows. "Good day for a nice run, huh? Everyone singing, everyone playing... A day cool enough for a race. You know what we gotta do."

Coraline tried to swallow the worry on her throat in order to mutter a reply, "Y-Yeah. I do."

"If you're up for it, come to the next room." Sonic offered, with a regretful face, before slowly walking to the next room.

It was like he was dreading the confrontation and the fate of the world as much as Coraline was... which didn't help much with the girl's guilt. Neither of his dead children, who now followed the girl and denied to believe that their father was doing this.

"Hey, kid, I know how hard it must be... Try to think of it as a doctor visit." Sonic sympathetically offered before going ahead on the next room, a mostly dark corridor with only a light spot at the beginning. It wasn't exactly _helping_ , but the analogy was stabilizing Coraline's thoughts more. "Are you ready?" He asked once the two got to the end, to another gateway. "I getcha if you ain't ready yet. 'cause I'm not either."

Great. Now Coraline had to fight with the King, who was her ghostly friend's beloved adoptive father, not to mention the beloved king of the entire kingdom if she wanted to escape and prevent her kind from being annihilated, and he wasn't feeling good about it either. Coraline had to hold onto her _determination_ just a bit while touching the four-point star right next to the gate, before crossing it.

The room behind the gate, perhaps couldn't exactly be described as a room. It was circular in shape, with light grey switching to black as if it was reflecting every piece of sunlight it could catch. There was nowhere to go from there.

"That's the barrier." Sonic began. "The seal keeping us trapped in the Underground. ...Look. If you got anything you didn't do yet, just do what you gotta do."

Coraline sweated as she looked at Sonic's back, then at Dipper and Mabel's horrified faces, then the barrier... and then down at her feet. She couldn't do it. She wanted so bad to go back to her parents but... She had to do something. She had hopes that there was another way. A way to escape without anyone being killed. With her anguishes clashing, she finally spoke, "I'm not ready yet."

Dipper and Mabel's faces displayed shock at Coraline's option. "I understand," Sonic replied, gently and grudge-less. "Anything you gotta do is important. Even if you just wanna hang out with friends or watch a movie... Take as much time as you need."

"But... don't you wanna go back home so bad?" Dipper questioned, pretty confused.

"I do." Coraline whisper-replied. "I just need to figure out another way."


End file.
